


White Marble

by Starla-Nell (Princess_Nell)



Series: Kit Brosca's SciFi AU [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: AU Fade, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Criminal Meet-Cute, F/M, Fade Sex, Flashbacks, Rimming, Sex Positive, Slow Burn, alternate demon designs, badass female characters, bisexual non-erasure, canon-typical blood spray, lots of violence actually, shattered canon, so it's very important, tags to be added as I polish chapters, violence furthers the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-05-27 02:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 60,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15015149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Nell/pseuds/Starla-Nell
Summary: Kinloch Hold is a mess when Kit Brosca arrives: A shining tower controlled by a madman. Children cowering in fear of armed men. Electronic demons making their own forms. Mages--nano pilots to the enlightened--joining with powerful allies, sacrificing their own minds.It's a mess no one else seems equipped to clean up, but survival and getting the job done come first. She starts by reverse-kidnapping an elf to get inside... (Why does everyone underestimate dwarves? *shrug* Their blood.)





	1. Prelude

He kneels, seeking absolution. She asks questions, exposing his guilt as only a Mother of the Chantry can. Or maybe it’s this Mother, one he’s confessed to since she was a Sister and he was small enough to be called a child.

This is where it comes, the relief of laying down his burden, so much greater than usual.

Mother Ebris fails him. She claims Rinna’s blood was never on his hands, but he can feel it, sticky and persistent. He’s startled every time he takes off his gloves and no one screams for their guards. Perhaps she can’t see it, but it is _there_.

Her words are a buzz. His penance is not for murder this time. He cannot bear the guilt of another. His mind skitters around Taliesen’s guilt. _Will Taliesen as easily dispose of me?_ His chest crushes in again, but he breathes through it, giving nothing away.

Chanting verses, but not for her murder. He chants with every ounce of sincerity in him, but he cannot chant Rinna’s blood from his hands. He returns the next day, and the next, but is assigned no further verses.

He cannot keep living with the metallic tang of her blood. It’s fogging his senses, muting every emotion. He cannot assign the Maker’s restitution to himself; it must be given by a Sister or Mother. He cannot live—or worse, die—with this stain on his soul. Perhaps if he takes a job big enough, or something against the Chantry itself, they will finally make him pay for Rinna as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short. Chapter 2 coming very, very soon.


	2. Shadows and Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative chapter title: Why Crows don’t Take Hostages or Who’s the Kidnapper?  
> Zevran jumps from the templar pan into the Circle fire, making new friends along the way. Stockholm syndrome for everybody!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so glad to be back, frens! I had a heavy load in May, but now it’s June and I am excited to get back to Kit and her accomplices. 
> 
> Check the tags because violence starts next chapter. There’s smut later, but I figure no point in getting everyone excited this early. So to speak. If you don’t read smut, I plan to label it in the chapter notes so you can skip it. 
> 
> This chapter is Zevran’s POV, partly because we need to catch up with him after not seeing him in Dust and Neon. (Whose idea was that, anyway?!? Oh, right, mine.) 
> 
> Those who haven’t read Dust and Neon need to know that in this universe, the Dwarven language often drops subjects when they’re unneeded, similar to Spanish. When she uses Common, Kit does the same. Just makes more sense to her. ;)
> 
> Heaps of love on my beta, Rosehip on AO3 aka @october-rosehip on Tumblr! They are lovely and have helped me improve this work so much, and you should definitely check out their work! Mistakes and problematic content are mine. Please message me about anything you spot on Tumblr @starlanellwrites.

Zevran slips between cold shadows as Taliesen’s laugh bubbles up from memory.

“I wonder if you could kill so many lovers on your own,” Taliesen’s memory taunts, sprawled over their shared bed, half-naked in the summer heat.

“I know my blade work and have poisoned my share. Anyway, I’ll never have to find out, since we work so well together.” Zevran had rolled his hips to drive home the innuendo.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he’d murmured, grabbing Zevran’s head and kissing his hair. Zevran remembers grinning and wiggling loose.

Rinna laughed with them, but the soft edge of the memory is a knife in his heart. _Did her laugh tinkle, or did it roll?_

Ah, so today he’s not flinging her memory away; he’s regretting its loss.

“Nonsense. I see no reason we’d ever be apart.” Rinna’s remembered hand roams up Zevran’s thigh, and he turns from Taliesen to kiss her neck. Zevran missed the look Taliesen shot her, and his mind aches to fill it in. _Doubt? Bliss? Jealousy?_

 _Stop._ Zevran focuses on the texture of the barrels he’s crouched behind, pushing away memories of what he’s lost. Distraction now will kill him.

In hindsight, it would have been better to bedazzle Sister Gilda’s friend to get close to her, but Zevran didn’t know. Sister Gilda looks nothing like Rinna.

Gilda is exactly like Rinna.

She’s beautiful, differently from Rinna, but beautiful all the same. Her tired Antivan name resulted in features neither Antivan nor tired. Her curls are magnificent, her skin glows like a stone he’d seen in a shop once, a cassiterite. She smiled easily but rarely at him. Well, at first.

It was not easy to seduce her. Her isolated Bournshire monastery took him in as a weary traveler and contrived to make himself useful well beyond the customary welcome. She resisted his charms with verbal riposte to equal any swordplay he admired in the templars’ training yard. When she succumbed, her touch made him wonder who had seduced whom.

“How did such a beauty end up with such a name?”

“You don’t like my name?” Gilda had asked.

“It’s marvelous in its own way…” They laughed together easily. “No, I’m sorry, your name doesn’t sing.”

“No,” she said, giggling, “it really doesn’t.”

Zevran had shoved away the thought of the poison in his pouch. _This is for her_ , he’d thought, _to make her last moments as pleasurable as I can._

“My mother named me. I’m the third child, and Mother is from the Free Marches. Gilda: a sacrifice for the Chantry, named so she would never forget.”

He put a hand over hers. “That must have been hard.”

“In some ways, I suppose, but I always knew what was expected of me.”

“And you bowed to your duty without question?” he teased.

“Ah. No. Not until I saw how far I might get within the Chantry.” She looked at him through her lashes. “I admit to being ambitious.”

 _Hence the contract on your life, dear one._ Zevran had smiled through the thought, even though the only person he had ever called ‘dear one’ was Rinna.

That’s when he’d recognized the close similarities between Gilda and Rinna. She threatened someone’s power, but her sin was only ambition if such a thing is truly a sin. Yet, he couldn’t end the contract.

“And how do you find yourself in Ferelden?” he asked to keep his thoughts hidden.

She snorted, something she would never do in the Bournshire courtyard. “Someone in Antiva objected to my being ambitious, of course.” She smirked at him. “This assignment only gets me closer to Orlais.”

“The Golden Throne? They underestimated the extent of your aspirations.”

Her mask of arrogance fell, as Rinna’s did only once when Taliesen was away on a contract. “I’m just… making the best of a dead-end position. If I don’t keep trying, I honestly don’t know what I would do.”

It was as if he had a second chance with Rinna herself. He held her while she cried, all of her defenses down for him. He knew he must do it that night or never.

That night came and went, but he continued to lie to himself. He was determined she would die smiling. He ruled out each method until nothing was left. 

 _What is wrong with me?_ He used to put lovemaking and the death he brings into separate boxes, never letting the contradictions touch. Now he cannot stand the memory of her gazing at him as he plotted her murder. That used to be its own box, as well: the kill was never ‘murder’ until he left for confession, Taliesen teasing him for his piety. But with Rinna, with Gilda, it’s as if the crime, the kill, and the love have mixed together. He loved Rinna, and he could have loved Gilda, if he’d let himself. In frustration, he had coated his knife with Crow poison and confronted her openly.

That went as well as could be expected. Now he crouches behind barrels, looking for an escape from the compound.

Guards run by the barrels, shouting that he was on top of the wall. Zevran stands and walks the opposite direction along the base of the wall, hood up, pretending he lives here and is fearful of the deadly assassin loose on the grounds. _Just a little further._

Another memory assaults him as he walks.

“Zevran?” the betrayed look on Gilda’s face when she saw the dagger, so much like Rinna.

“You have angered some very powerful people, amore.”

She shook her head a bare ten minutes ago, black curls dancing around her shoulders. “Does their opinion matter?” She stalked up to him, dagger or no. Zevran had to back up a step to keep the poisoned blade from her smooth medium-umber skin. “It’s me, Zevran. How could you?”

“You do not know me, ‘amore.’ I’m a handsome face that caught your eye and words that flattered your vanity.” Zevran flinches at the bitterness his voice had revealed.

“You are more than that.”

“Agreed. I am also a Crow.” Zevran stepped closer, setting the tip of the blade against the hollow at the base of her throat.

“ _I’m_ more than a mark,” she said, still angry, glaring her death in Zevran’s eye.

If her death was ever there.

“Stay,” she whispered, begging, her skin shining in the candlelight. “Zevran, don’t do this.”

Zevran had run for the window and climbed down the wall. Ironically, that’s when they raised the alarm: when all were safe. _I must be getting careless._

And he is. Who leaves a mark alive? He could return and finish, but no. His illusion is broken. He can’t kill Rinna again.

He continues out Bournshire’s gate, imagining a dramatic death skewered on a dozen templar blades and pulling his hood close around his face against the cold wind. His street bike gleams to his right.

“It’s you!”

His damn vain clothes. Like a fool, Zevran jerks his head up, putting his face with its distinctive tattoo in full view of the speaker. A blond braid edges out of his hood, contrasting on his light-brown skin in the artificial torchlight.

Ser Eirnin must have been watching the bikes outside the gate. Two sword lengths from him, Zevran puts his hands up slowly.

“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, my friend,” he says. “I have done nothing here.”

Young Ser Eirnin’s hand rests on the pommel of his sword. “You can tell the Knight-Commander all about it.”

If Zevran goes into custody, he won’t have weapons or any prayer of getting out alive when the Crows come.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, friend.” He lowers his hands to his knives. “Much better for everyone if I walk away, yes?” His smile ruins the effect.

“No,” Ser Eirnin says, drawing steel. He turns, taking a breath to shout to the templars searching the courtyard.

Zevran takes advantage of the man’s distraction to close the space and slip his knives under the plates of the ridiculous ‘Days of Andraste’ templar armor. One is between the man’s ribs, the other in his throat, blocking anything more than a gurgle and a trickle of blood.

“See, Taliesen?” Zevran mutters.

It was perfect except that a stray handheld torch turned his way at that moment. He draws the attention of a good dozen well-armed men in the Chantry’s courtyard.

_Normally, I wouldn’t mind so much. Well. Ideally less blood and much less armor._

“Murderer! Stop him!”

 _If you must go, go with style._ Zevran yanks his daggers free and throws back his hood, laughing and leaping the last remaining steps to his bike. He grabs the helmet from the back of his bike, tosses a leg over the seat, and takes a few precious moments to get the _blessed_ thing pointed in the right direction while the templars run toward him, clanking.

Kick. Nothing but a grumpy stutter. _Come on, Tassie._ Kick. The templars run closer, some drawing swords. Others draw guns, shouting for their fellows to get out of their shot. _Shit. Time to go!_ Kick. Tassie finally growls to life as the first sword swings towards him.

The sword rips the edge of his puffed neon-and-black sleeve as he takes off. He laughs as most templars spin on their heels and run for their own bikes inside the walls. A few shoot instead, but Andraste must be smiling on him tonight. Between puffs of dirt, he gets past the large pond and over the hill before the templars’ bikes roar behind him. He curses his mark for living in the middle of nowhere, blesses his foresight for filling the tank before he made his attempt, and opens up his engine. She purrs like Andraste in the arms of the Maker. Tassie has a balance of speed and comfort, unlike the comfort-driven Ferelden Forders the templars ride. Unfortunately, this road has only one destination, and Tassie can’t handle off-road reliably. Maybe he can lose them in Redcliff.

###

The town is not as large as Zevran hoped, and there aren’t enough elves to make blending easy. Still, he estimates a twenty-minute lead and ducks between the brightly-painted hovels stacked up the side of the slope. He can’t keep Tassie or his coat: too distinctive, the bike with flashy neon-green lights embedded into the body, the matching green-on-black coat with puffed sleeves.

He hands his cloak and keys to the next elf he sees.

“You’re giving me a Taslin Strider?” the elf says, eyeing Tassie.

“Sell her, but _not_ to a chop shop and remember who you sold her to,” he says, memorizing the face. “Where might I gain a ride north?”

The elf grins, eyeing his leather gloves and the knives on his back and correctly pegging him for _trouble_. “Merchant Faryn would take help loading and unloading.” He’s wearing a black coat about the right size.

“Might I have your coat?” Zevran asks, clenching his fists so he doesn’t wrap his arms around himself. His light armor is still too conspicuous, and he’s cold _already_.

The elf considers a moment that stretches an eternity and then tosses Zevran the plain coat off his back. It’s long and tatty but more Ferelden. Zevran pulls the hood up against the cold.

He nods and heads north as the elf dons his coat and takes off in the opposite direction, still grinning. Business with the merchant is easily negotiated since what he wants isn’t pay but cover. When the templars get to town, Zevran is only an elven laborer, fighting his pride to keep his face respectfully turned away and down. It pays off. The templars search the town systematically as he helps with the last of the loading. Shouts of “you, there” echo between the wood shacks. _My new friend must be leading them on a merry chase._ Zevran leaves town with the merchant before the soldiers even notice the other elf has black hair.

The merchant’s truck is red but rusted, and it clatters down the road. Zev rides in the bed, huddling for warmth and blending with the covered piles of wares. A thin trail of smoke stinks behind them.

###

Unfortunately, the truck is slow. Some hours later, Zevran hears familiar bikes a few miles back and peeks at their surroundings. There’s a small inn next to docks nearby. The lake is huge, and docks mean boats.

Zev pokes his head through the back window: “How do you feel about templars, my good man?” he asks.

“Fine, upstanding young men, by and large. They take good care of the mages: keep them off our backs so we can live our lives.”

“I held a knife to your throat, then,” Zevran says, pulling the hood of his black coat over his head under the spare tarp he’d been using as a blanket. “Thanks for the ride.”

“What?!” the merchant hits the brakes, alarmed.

Zevran disentangles himself from the tarp and leaps out of the bed of the pickup. He dodges around the merchant and sprints toward those docks as his driver shouts after him.

He bolts down the unexpected hill, terrified of twisting an ankle every step but unable to stop. At the bottom, he keeps running on momentum as he takes the lay of the land. A laughing cluster of people leaving the Spoiled Princess marked in rune-lights: educated neighborhood. Lurker fading into the shadows: criminal network, perhaps? Bulky soldier escorting a lithe punk toward the dock. The dock is his way out. A child with oddly bleached hair and the boatswain are talking there. One boat. The man looks patronizing, amused. He’s gesturing toward the soldier and the punk. _Perhaps her—parents? Youngish. Cousins? No time, must get on the boat._ Zevran runs up behind the child, drawing the knife hidden under his coat. He’s not willing to put her at his back. Even children can be dangerous.

“Might I have a ride across this lake?” Zevran says with his best smile.

“No can do. I’m not allowed to take anyone across without the Knight-Commander’s express permission,” the templar-armored boatswain says.

 _Shit. Three guesses as to who he’ll side with when the Bournshire templars show up, and the first two don’t count._ Zevran points the knife at the man. “I’m in a hurry. Better to get in the boat, no?”

Zev is a step behind the child, who turns on the narrow dock. She’s angry and not a child. This dwarven woman is short and gorgeous. She bites back her ire and steps aside. Angry at the human, then. Perhaps she’s negotiating a ride and willing to wait to see how things turn out. Is she a merchant? What does he appear to be? A wild man who’d pulled a knife on an armed boatman, no doubt.

“Oh?” says the haughty templar. “What makes you think that I would let _you_ across?” He glances with complete disdain at the knife and puffs out his armored chest, widening the gaps between the plates.

Zevran scoffs despite his hurry. “My friend, you could not survive a minute against me. Your armor is riddled with weak points. What does it protect against? Swords? Perhaps nano? A well-placed knife would easily find its way between your ribs.” Under his armpit for this design, but no point telling this buffoon where to guard.

“How would you get across? I’ve got the start code to this boat.”

The woman faces the soldier and steps within arm’s length of Zevran. “Is the only reason _I_ haven’t stabbed him yet,” she mutters, loud enough for Zevran but not the boatswain. Her accent tickles a memory he doesn’t need right now.

“You’re not in the hurry I am,” he mutters back.

She eyes him over her shoulder. “Clearly. Need better things to do with your knife.”

He can’t kill this templar, so he deflects. “So eager for my blade?” he mutters, stepping closer. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Is it my dashing good looks or my irresistible charm?”

The dwarf rolls her eyes but holds her ground, never smiling. She hefts her coin purse and says quietly over her shoulder, “How do plan to cross? Suppose could bicker with this idiot like a gelding bronto.” She turns back to the boatswain.

Zevran blinks. The templar looks nervous, as if Zevran’s more of a threat closer to the dwarf. Zevran had read her childishness from _his_ behavior.

The lovely lady wants to cross? He can assist though she might not appreciate it. Zevran steps closer behind the woman, catching her hands behind her, pinning her fast – desperation making his senses sharper. He places the tip of the blade against her back below her ribs, the angle making the threat to her heart clear, the old poison a showy but inert crust along it.

She struggles against his grip but cannot escape. “Get your hands off me,” she says loudly, voice high with panic. He pulls her close and chuckles evilly for the templar, and she stops struggling.

Someone behind them roars a protest. Her companions, Zevran guesses.

“How would you like a death on your conscience?” Zevran asks the templar. “A young innocent, pure of heart, a long future before her…” The dwarf jerks against Zevran briefly. “Gone unless we’re on that boat when another sets a foot on this dock.”

The templar backs several paces toward the boat. “You monster. A child!”

“Indeed I am a monster.” Zev grins at the yahoo. _Are they all this stupid in Ferelden, mistaking a merchant for a child?_ “You should move faster, no?” He steps past the templar and into the boat, careful to keep his hostage between them. Now he can see the soldier, the punk woman a step behind, running to the dock, a hand on his sword. Behind them, flashes of light flicker over the rise of the hill.

“Not a step closer, ser, or I will give your _friend_ an extra smile.” They’re probably lovers considering the look on the soldier’s face, but there’s a little misunderstanding with the templar boatswain to maintain.

The soldier stops short. He has the bearing of a templar, but Zevran hesitates to put him in that category too quickly. There is something – off – about him. The same is off about this dwarf, come to that.

“You are ignorant of the trouble you invite,” sneers the witch behind the soldier. Zevran suspects only the presence of a templar prevents him from being remastered into a toad.

“Morrigan! Alistair!” squeaks his hostage. No wonder the boatswain thinks she’s a child, but the high pitch rings terribly false. “Is trying to take me to the island. Come after me!” The dwarven merchant drops her coin purse on the dock, but he’s not going to fall for a simple distraction.

Alistair looks comically startled. Kind of her to provide names, really, but Zevran doesn’t like anyone coming after him. On the other hand, Alistair snaps at the templar: “Don’t just stand there, Carroll. He’s going to slit Kit’s throat, man! Get moving!” so that works out. Maybe he should take hostages more often. Not bad for a first try.

Carroll nods abruptly. Zev backs further into the boat, sitting and keeping an eye on everyone, spotting his old friends the Bournshire templars cresting the hill he’d just run down. They slow more than he, ungainly. One stumbles and is caught by his brother-in-stupid-armor. Ser Carroll enters the code, starts the engine, and they glide away from the dock. The helplessness on Alistair’s face as he’s left standing on the dock is amusing. Morrigan grips his arm, turning his attention to the Bournshire templars.

It’s comparatively relaxing on the water. Kit squirms in her seat, and he changes his grip solicitously, wrapping his left arm under hers to pin it back and wrapping his knife arm over her right. She settles against him intimately, shifting until they settle his arm low across her chest, blade now at her throat.

His hood had fallen during his run with no opportunity to pull it up again. The templars shout when they spot him, but they’re a stone’s throw out. Zev feels Kit tense for the first time. She’d struggled with the knife at her back, but this is different. She doesn’t move, but her arms become iron, her back shifts as though a rod runs through it.

_Could she be concerned about the templars as well?_

Zev pulls his knife arm tighter without moving the knife itself, but it’s enough. She hisses and strains away from its edge. “You had best speed up, no?”

“There are more templars on the island, you know,” Carroll says conversationally.

“Take me somewhere else.”

He blinks. “I can’t. I didn’t program it, and it only goes back and forth between two points.”

Zev curses. “It is a good thing I have my little friend here, is it not?” he says. Kit jerks an arm, catching him startlingly in the ribs. He hides his surprise. _Why hasn’t she done that before?_

Zevran notices a few other odd things about his captive. She is well-armored for a merchant, with a helmet dangling from her belt. She keeps her right hand near a certain point on her leg. Zevran glances over her shoulder to that leg. Concealed dagger. _Why hasn’t she used that?_ _Shit._ He places the accent: not just dwarven, but Carta.

His hostage is using him right back.

###

Zevran keeps ‘threatening’ her on the short ride across the lake but taps the shiv on Kit’s leg to say he knows it’s there. Carroll starts up again cursing him as a monster preying on children.

While Carroll bristles, Zev pulls Kit close and mutters into her ear, “I took your invitation,” Zev says. “I’d appreciate if you cooperate with this little charade.”

Kit turns her head, widens her eyes at him innocently, and squeaks, “Will try my best,” in the most ridiculous childish voice. If that’s her best, it won’t be enough.

Zev scoffs at her, earning another glare from Carroll, so perhaps it will. “Yes, you suit my purposes well,” he says loudly enough for Carroll to hear. Let him think Zevran a monster if it helps them.

The boat pulls up, and the templar ties it to the dock.

“Where’s your other boat?” Zevran says to hide that he has no idea how to get off this island. Maybe helicopter theft.

“There isn’t one. Your only way off is back the way you came.” At this Carroll looks grim. Unspoken is that he is not letting Zevran off so easily. Zev rolls his eyes.

“Lead the way, then, ser,” says Zevran politely. He mumbles to Kit, “This still work for you?”

She nods then whimpers, “Noooo, not the scary tower.”

“You are ridiculous,” he purrs in her ear, smiling.

Carroll leads the way up the stairs and through doors of darkened glass.

Kinloch Hold’s lobby has white walls and a white marble-tiled floor. Both doors and floor-to-ceiling outer windows are the kind of heavy clear ‘glass’ that would spiderweb instead of shatter on impact. The black ceiling relieves the glare. The look makes ordinary objects Edgy Statements against the smooth white – and makes each object’s location extremely clear.

Zev gets through the door and looks around – shit, shit, too many templars, all looking with wide eyes at Zev’s knife. There are five heavily armored templars here, plus one against the wall in something more suited to Zevran’s agile style of fighting. This one shifts nervously next to an assortment of supplies, packed and ready for travel. Zevran recognizes the glow of lyrium seeping from one pack. He wonders how they plan to get all of that across the lake in one boat. Three templars stand behind a massive white reception desk on the right. The desk looks bullet-proof and nano-resistant.

“Is taking me up!” Kit says. _Where does she mean?_ Everyone glances nervously at the frosted glass entrance to the main building, on the left.

“I am not in the habit of forcing entry,” Zevran murmurs in her ear. Another elbow digs into his ribs, reminding him Kit’s cooperation stops half a dozen well-trained swords from digging into his guts. “All right, if you insist.” Can’t be worse than the pickle he’s in, can it? He steps toward the door, careful to remain a small target for the templar handguns.

“Alistair and Morrigan are right behind us!” Kit warns Zevran loudly enough for the templars.

The Knight-Commander nods to Ser Carroll, who edges to the outer door, presumably to get the ‘parents.’ It’s farcical. _Have I been pulled in from the audience for a street performance?_ Zev moves his back to the shatterproof outer glass.

“Your demands might not be what you want,” the Knight-Commander says much too reasonably. “The Tower is no longer under our control.”

“That is satisfactory.” Templar control means death for Zevran.

“You don’t understand. We’re allowing no one out. The nano pilots are dangerous.”

“Nano pilots are always dangerous, friend,” Zevran says. “That does not keep them from being people.”

“Sometimes it does,” mutters a templar to his left.

 _We seem to be wandering from the point, here,_ Zevran thinks.

“I will kill her,” Zevran threatens, tightening his grip theatrically again and continuing toward the door. A templar half-draws his sword, and Kit’s hand twitches toward that hidden blade. _To fight them, or me?_

“She’s lost,” another templar says sadly, Knight-Captain by his uniform. _Brasca, if they think the hostage is as good as dead…_ “It might help our situation to let him in.”

“Come on, tough guy,” Kit mutters just loudly enough for him to hear. “Don’t go soft on me now.”

Zev snorts. “Unlikely,” he mutters back, not moving his lips. If he balks now, he’ll lose her protection. Zevran looks for a way out, sees none.

“A little nano is the least of my worries,” Zevran says to the templars. “Let us in.”

A templar whispers in the Knight-Commander’s ear. He nods and turns to Zevran.

“We’ll open the door as soon as you let her go.”

Zevran throws his head back in a laugh. “I’m afraid not, ser,” he says. There’s movement beyond the outer glass: the boat has returned. “If anyone else joins us, she dies.”

He stares at the Knight-Commander, who only shrugs in the end.

They open the door into the Tower just as the front doors open, revealing not just Alistair and Morrigan but also the Knight-Commander of Bournshire and one of his Knight-Captains. Zevran retreats quickly into the hall, allowing the doors to seal safely in front of him as the Knight-Commander shouts, “No!” scrambling into the room Zevran is leaving.

He takes a breath, arms wrapped around his ‘victim’ casually. This hall is as pristine as the entry, but the air has a metallic note, with a wisp of blood and burned hair. There’s a hum and a soft clicking in the air that makes Zevran uneasy. Nano, but distant? Zevran glances about, faintly aware he’s still holding Kit.

“To be clear,” Kit says, “am no nug-licking innocent.” While Zevran savors this delightful contradiction, she moves quickly. Zev thought he’d pulled her left arm all the way back, but she yanks back and up. Instead of escaping, she grabs his knife hand and balls into motion, her back hard against him. His world turns upside down for a moment, ending in a jarring crash. He finds himself gasping on cold white marble, looking up at the black ceiling, then at the back of Kit’s leg. Pain shoots up his extended arm as she pries his knife from his hand. His laughter rings off the hard floors. _How novel!_ A heel in his neck? There: her hands are on his wrist. One foot under his right shoulder and the other on the far side of his head, keeping head close to shoulder. She’s seated on the ground, pulling his arm at a diagonal and above his head. The inner bend of his elbow is facing the ceiling.

“Marvelous,” Zevran says. Her legs – one on each side of his knife arm, thighs clamping it below the elbow – help her bend his arm the wrong way when she lifts her hips again, causing another shot of pain. It cuts through the fog he’s been living in. Zevran hisses appreciatively.

“I see you have turned the tables on me,” Zevran says. “And what do you intend to do now that you have me, I wonder?”

“Depends on you.” She eases the bend but not her grip. “Mostly wanted you to know I’d been holding back.”

“This message is as clear as the finest crystal, Joyela.”

“Aren’t Ferelden.”

“Right in one. I hail from fair Antiva,” Zevran says. “May I get up? I promise not to kill you, and I believe proper introductions are in order.”

That gets a dark huff of a chuckle, but she releases his arm and rolls away, tucking his knife in her belt in quite a civilized manner, apparently at ease. She is, of course, still on her guard.

It’s not like he doesn’t have hidden knives, too.

He dips into a bow and a flourish. “Zevran Arainai, Zev to my friends. Fugitive and former Crow.”

“Kit Brosca,” she nods backwards, an odd chin-jerk salute. “Grey Warden, formerly Carta, and would-be savior of Thedas.”

He raises his eyebrows. A Grey Warden, is it? He was right about Carta, at least. She seems to be all business. _This could be fun._ He turns it into an eyebrow waggle. She tilts her head.

“What are running from, Crow?”

“ _Former_ Crow, Carta.”

“Point to you.” But she waits for the answer.

“At the moment? Those Bournshire templars who came with your friends. But it’s not to last. How many _former_ Crows have you met?”

“None,” Kit admits with a grunt. She could dismember him with her tone of voice, he has no doubt.

“And for good reason,” Zev says pleasantly. “When they find me, the Crows will kill me.”

“Uh-huh. And… what are the Crows?”

Zevran is surprised by the metaphorical kick in his chest. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of us? Our fame is spread to every corner of Thedas!”

“Have only been on the Surface a little over a week.” It seems to pain her to admit such a thing, but it explains much.

“Even underground corners!” Zevran sighs, smiling with all his considerable charm. She has not smiled once. It’s starting to grate on him. Well, if he’s not to be liked, let him be valued. “We are a guild of assassins, on the face of it. Dig deeper, though, and you can see that Crows have executed every major Antivan political maneuver since Queen Madrigal.”

“High claims for someone who failed a hostage situation.”

“Depends on your definition of success, does it not? Ah, in my defense, I was rushed, and the Carta trains their blades well. You have bested me.” Zev bows, and then laughs. “Yet, I believe I could be useful to you, no?”

Something rumbles on the floor above them. “Have a few marks for you to practice on,” Kit admits wryly. _They are to be allies, then. Good._ Zevran hates working alone.

 _Don’t think about that, Zevran,_ he chides himself.

Something screams, echoing down the hall, high and inhuman. Kit shivers and mumbles, “What’ve gotten into?”

“So,” Zevran says because he’d like to know, too, “why did you demand entrance here?”

“Is a Blight.”

Zevran knows of Wardens and Blights. “What has that to do with the Circle?”

“Surfacers aren’t taught history? Need allies to fight darkspawn and end the Blight. Especially since there are only two Wardens in Ferelden. Paragons’ beards, don’t even know if we’ll be enough, but is not like I have options.”

“Two?! I thought there was a whole unit at the battle of Ostagar.”

“Excellent use of the past tense, Antivan,” Kit says grimly. “King Cailan and the Grey Wardens led an army to clean out Ostagar because everyone there was tainted. Are tainted, actually.”

“But, Joyela, you said the King cleaned the place out?”

“They failed. Probably died. Morrigan checked the Fade archives. Kept a bit, if”—

Muffled sounds of arguing bloom in the lobby. Zevran recognizes the rich voice of the Bournshire Knight-Commander when their arguing gets louder.

“…murdered one of our own in his escape,” the Knight-Commander says.

“It’s out of my hands! We don’t have the…” the conversation dies down again.

The door booms and clicks. “Brasca!” Zev swears, looking again for escape routes.

“Shit from the Paragons’ collective hairy asses,” Kit agrees as she ducks into a nook, pulling Zev with her as the door opens with a hiss.

“Be mindful what you owe!” Morrigan calls as a set of armored footsteps stomp up the hall, followed by the sound of her boots.

“If you survive, you may claim a boon,” promises the Kinloch Knight-Commander. The door hisses sealed again, muffling the Bournshire Knight-Commander’s objections.

“Stay here,” Kit whispers before she pops into the hall. “Got here fast!”

“Kit! Thank the Maker you’re alright! Where’s that bloody elf? I hope you skewered him? Did you get any blood on you?” A man’s voice. That would be…

“Alistair. Am fine. The elf’s name is Zevran, and are working together.”

“You’re what? Starting when?”

 _Might as well get this over with._ Zevran steps into the hall, smiling jovially. “Starting when we both needed across the lake. We performed this ruse rather cleverly, wouldn’t you say?”

“And then I kicked your ass,” Kit says, smirking at him. Zevran basks in even this teasing half-smile. 

“Exactly,” he says. “Now we have an understanding.”

“Hey,” Alistair whines, “why didn’t you establish an understanding with Morrigan when you met _her_?”

Kit turns her smirk to him. “Understood each other right away, didn’t we Morri?”

Morrigan smiles cryptically, amused or perhaps merely tolerant. “We shall see,” is all she says.

“You do have a plan for getting out?” Zevran asks. “Preferably alive, yes?”

“Sure. We kill everyone who tries to kill us and make friends with the rest.”

“Not everything outright?” Alistair says. “They’ve asked to invoke the Right of Annulment.”

Kit sighs. “What is that?” she asks. It occurs to Zevran that each question she asks rankles her terribly. This makes sense. Many criminal organizations are difficult to survive if you don’t look like you know what you’re doing.

“Basically…” Alistair looks at the black ceiling thoughtfully before looking at her again, “killing everything, whether or not it tries to kill us.”

Kit shakes her head. “Need nano pilots. What’s the point if we kill them all?”

“The templars pledged to oppose the Blight after we clean their mess,” Morrigan says. “Death is the least the pilots here deserve for allowing themselves to be corralled thus.”

“Have _got_ to be kidding. No killing anything, unless it tries to kill us first.”

“Yes, ser.” Alistair sketches a salute with a saucy smile.

Zevran could easily like that one, all muscle, sass, and black-and-red armor with flannel peeking out. Sadly, Alistair returns his smile with a glare. Too bad about that initial misunderstanding. Well, Zevran has succeeded with less. He maintains his smile and throws him the same salute.

Kit snorts. Zevran is delighted. _I must make her smile sometime._

“Introductions, right? Surfacers love introductions,” Kit says. “Zevran, meet Alistair of Redcliff, my fellow Grey Warden. Alistair, Zevran Arainai, fugitive and former Crow. Morrigan, Zevran. Zevran, Morrigan of the Korcari Wilds. She’s more dangerous than she looks.”

Up close, Zevran can see that the punk hairstyle he’d taken for a mohawk is a series of small, tight bundles of hair down the middle of her head. Morrigan’s bright flowing silk and black leather is daubed in mud, but so is the armor of the others. Blue-black feathers and cured bits of black fur decorate her shoulders and wrists, respectively. Her knee-length boots are similarly fur-lined despite their otherwise Ferelden style.

“Of the Wilds, you say?”

“Is that a problem, elf?”

“Not at all. I am wondering if you were familiar with legends of the Antivan Witch of the Wilds, Yavana.”

“I can’t say I am, as I’m from the Korcari Wilds. Can we move on?” Morrigan demands.

“Not yet,” Kit says. “Did you get my cash?”

Zevran says, “Cash won’t help locked in here, will it?”

“Nope,” Kit says, smirking again, “but if had access to that supply stockpile out there…”

Alistair smiles. “Which we did.”

“What’d you get?” she asks eagerly. Zevran cannot put his finger on what it is about these two. There’s trust, but it doesn’t seem like they’re fucking.

 _Yet._ That’s what it is. They’re not fucking yet. Alistair likes her, and she trusts him, maybe even respects him. It’s a matter of time before they try it. Zevran wouldn’t mind lending a hand with that. Or his whole body. They’re both unconditionally gorgeous, she with muscle built like padding in all the right places and he with excellent shoulders and a good half-head height over Zevran, more over Kit. He needs time to… feel them out.

“We loaded up on nano and a few lyrium potions for Morrigan,” Alistair says. “I got you a better chest plate.” He digs it out of his pack. Zevran takes the opportunity to check his ass. It passes muster as it were.

“Is called a chest _protector_ ,” she says as she shucks her jacket and armor and replaces it with the lime-green plate so fast Zevran misses any flash of skin. “At least is my color.” It’s not. She looks like a mismatched garden gnome when she throws her brown leather jacket over the new armor. 

Alistair shrugs. “It’s a plate when it’s for bullets, but whatever.”

“Whatever? Is serious. Chest protectors are for everything, chest plates are just for bullets,” Kit says angrily.

Alistair smiles, and that’s how Zevran knows this isn’t anger but banter.

“I also got myself a sword,” Alistair continues. “This one can take lyrium runes, though I’m not sure we’ll find any friendlies to help with that before we’re out of here.”

Kit shoves her old plate at Zevran. “Here. Won’t fit worse than what you’ve got, and is better quality.”

“Ah, now I get your discards, Joyela? We are closer already,” he teases. He doesn’t miss Alistair’s scowl. “My fine knight in red-and-black armor, thank you for improving all our chances for survival with your most excellent gift.”

Morrigan snorts. “I don’t think it counts as a gift when you use the person’s money to pay for it.”

“I will have you know,” defends Alistair, “that I used my own money for that.”

“And her money for your sword, so it’s even.”

“Actually, most of that was for ammo,” Alistair says, and pulls a gun from a holster. _Safety on, carefully pointed away from everyone._ “I shoot a little, but I’m hoping you have better aim than me,” he says to Kit.

“Sorry,” Kit says. “I don’t shoot, even a little.”

Alistair opens his mouth, possibly to offer to teach what he knows. Zevran imagines the big man adjusting Kit’s grip and blurts, “I shoot.”

Which is true. But he’d intended to preserve some of his mystery.

“You also kill templars and kidnap innocent dwarves off of lake docks, so you’ll forgive me for not handing it over,” Alistair snaps.

“I killed _one_ templar in self-defense,” Zevran points out helpfully.

“Alistair…” Kit reproaches. Alistair gets a pass for the ‘innocent’ crack, apparently. Zevran rubs his ribs.

“For once I agree with the meathead,” Morrigan says.

“Hey!” he whines.

“We know nothing about Zevran but that he claims to be a former assassin. ’Tis not wise to hand him weapons.”

“Fine. Alistair, you keep the gun,” Kit snaps and takes out Zevran’s knife. “This is yours.” She flips it to him, and he catches the handle without thinking.

“Kit!” Alistair objects, alarmed. “What did we—?”

“He’s got five others.”

Zevran blinks. She’s… frightfully close, actually.

“Everyone ready?” Kit stomps down the hall.

He shrugs and follows his new patron. _I believe I’ve just landed a contract on the Archdemon. I wonder what my rate is._ Zevran smiles. If you must go, go with style. It doesn’t matter what he’s killing today. Everything before the hit is positioning, which in Zevran’s opinion is the fun part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for this alternate meeting for Zevran and Kit was inspired by the writing prompt, “You were being chased by the cops and took me hostage but didn’t realize the cops are after me,” from this post: http://onetruepairingideas.tumblr.com/post/153020083296/i-need-more-crime-aus
> 
> Kit’s throw-into-armbar is an ippon seonage into a juji gatame. Here’s a video of about how it goes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d-H4SuLkkQ. Rica taught her. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are bread and butter. Don’t let my writing starve! ;)
> 
> Edit: sorry I haven't been able to get this posted regularly. The next chapter is fighting me, hard, plus real world stuff is getting in the way. I will get it up as soon as I can.


	3. Take a Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Kit’s team kicks a little ass, and Uldred gets curious (edging into creepy).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than other chapters but better because of it.   
> It’s an official rule: the first name I use in narration is the POV character for that section.   
> Sorry for the delay on this one. I was a bit discouraged for a while, but I’m hoping to shove chapters of this fic out the door whenever I can.   
> Chapters are unbeta’d from here on out, but if that changes I’ll update the fic.

“Something new, Uldred,” the faithful nanobot pilot in front of the Canary screens says.

Unlike the rest of the Tower, the ceilings in the Harrowing Chamber are arched and vaulted stained glass, only a few panes missing in the intricate design that curves to the floor. The shifting effect of the colored light on the white marble floors is fascinating to his spirit partner. The lack of frosted glass was always Uldred’s favorite feature of this chamber. The vents are closed, but it’s chilly despite the sunshine.

Uldred turns from his conversation with Irving, tied in his chair, First Enchanter of the collapsed false Circle. They are, as always, trying to win the other to their respective side, but their conversations have gained urgency since Uldred attacked the templars. Their jailers, says Uldred. Their protectors, says Irving.

“What is it?” The screens are arranged for ease of tracking people through the halls. Uldred had found omniscience fascinating at first, but watching was always the templars’ job. He’s much better at recruiting. He needs the power of these last holdouts, voluntarily if possible.

The nanobot pilot points at two unclean intruders onscreen, leaving dirt on his white marble floors. A street elf threatening a tunnel rat with a knife just inside the entrance. _Oh! She turns the tables quickly._

“More fodder to become abominations, I suppose?” Uldred muses to the nanobot pilot at the screens. “Bait a rage demon to attack their little haven.” He leans in closer to watch.

###

Alistair is sure he’s running toward his death as he dodges piles of cardboard boxes and wooden pallets.

Typical of the Tower, this room is sunlit white marble floors, frosted-glass walls, and black ceilings, but he can’t remember where he is. _The practice room? No._ The nanobot pilots here have piled hoarded supplies to break up lines of sight. _No,_ Alistair realizes as he strides sideways to reach the door in time, _not lines of sight, but lines of_ _fire._ Children in apprentice pilot robes huddle behind benches and supplies, hiding not from him (then again, he’s not a templar) but from the door that leads to the upper Tower floors.

He refocuses beyond the clear-glass door and tenses for battle as he runs towards it. A rage spirit in the Fade must’ve seized control of a chip, sufficient nano, and fuel. He’s trained to disable independent nano. Demons. But facing one’s different.

Alistair’s tallest here, but the glittering metal demon is a good foot taller when it rears up, upper body curled to look through the door with its top-facing eyes. Its widest point is wider than Alistair’s shoulders, but its armored sections taper at top and tail. It bows to the white marble floor, many whip-like legs clattering and leaving a sinuous, glittering trail to the door. _No, slow down, you stupid demon! There are people in the way._ In particular, Wynne is concentrating on the door in a manner that screams ‘casting.’ Her purple-lit seal around the door’s edges glitters as the demon flows against the door, losing its shape and covering the glass like mercury poured onto a skylight with fucked-up gravity.

The door shakes. Wynne concentrates harder to move her seal with the door and prevent gaps as the entire demon bursts into flames. _Not in the good way._ The door shakes harder as the flaming demon-puddle rams it. The demon’s fiery nano slips by Wynne’s purple-limned seal. _Maker!_ In a magic fight, it’s never good for your side to have less processing power. It slurps through a large crack, flashing its chip and forming a trilobite again on this side of the door.

Wynne covers herself in thick nano, called Rock Armor even though it’s tiny relaxed metal springs, then throws a similar ball of armored nano at it, loaded springs hitting high and knocking it onto its back, legs whipping. Alistair, having tracked its chip as it reformed, stabs the demon while it’s recovering. Missed. _Is it here?_ He stabs again, which at least disrupts the nano. Rising, the monster leans against Alistair’s shield with a locked-in panel of glittering armor and whipping legs. He skids back a pace. _Let’s not forget it’s still on fire._ Alistair backs up to swing his shield and knock it off balance, a harder hit before it recovers, then a whack to knock it over again. Kit and the new guy catch up, and they’re on it, blades slicing into the thickest clusters of locked nano, gloves disappearing into the hot cloud of metal dust-sized machines behind the cuts. It gets up facing them, but Alistair shouts at it.

“Hey, ugly. Your momma was a carburetor!” It turns back to him, spraying flaming nano against his shield. _Oh, good. Fire’s my favorite._ Better him than those two fools dancing in basically underwear. At least he has a shield. _Templar armor would be even better._ Alistair flinches at his own wish.

Zevran leaps, laughing joyously, long coat resembling wings of a black bird, both daggers digging deep into the back of the flaming demon. _He can take care of himself. Focus, Redcliff._ Alistair closes with the demon, slashing with his sword and roasting in his heavy armor. The demon might whip its thin legs-turned-arms? Dodge? It doesn’t bother with either, just turns up the heat. Alistair’s skin sears and blisters. _Frecking void._

The heat breaks like a summer breeze. The air crystallizes and encases the demon in ice. _No gratitude; that’s Morrigan._ The demon doesn’t catch fire again before Kit spins for extra momentum and sinks one dagger deep into its back. Ice shatters under her blade, and the demon throws its whippy arms up and shivers into a pile of sparkling metal. Kit flicks the chip off her blade.

Putting those blades away, she spins on Alistair. “Why didn’t use your dust-eating Cleanse Area spell?”

Alistair blinks, having to translate in his mind. _Dust-eating is a swear for dwarves._ “It’s not a spell, it’s an EMP. I didn’t have time.”

“Tip from your _leader_ : Make time,” Kit sneers, “fast.”

She stalks off toward Wynne and the children. “Everyone okay?” Kit snaps. They flinch except Wynne. Zevran steps out of Kit’s shadow. She glares at him as Alistair follows, wary of their new companion.

A glimpse through the next door snaps the room into place for Alistair, and his step falters. This room was once part hallway, part staging area for incoming supplies. The Tranquil organized supplies here before taking them upstairs. The boxes now blocking the walkway should be stacked against the walls.

Zevran tries to calm the freaked-out children. “What my colleague means to say is, how are you holding up? Was anyone burned?” The man gives a dazzling smile as Kit stomps back to the former demon to help Morrigan collect nano for her staff. Alistair watches as Zevran coaxes the children to relax, smile. Trust him.

Alistair does not like that man.

###

Uldred has to admit: they demolished the demon in short order. _Is this a problem… or an opportunity?_ _What can we learn about the newcomers with only visual Canaries?_

The tunnel rat approaches the barbarian witch as she scoops handfuls of glittering nano and drops them into her staff’s recovery vent. _A dirty, desperate practice._ As they converse, the witch picks up the demon’s chip, studies it, and neatly crushes it under her staff tip. Such a waste. He could have used that to tempt another demon. As they talk, the barbarian makes slicing motions with her hands. The rat gets a vicious look on her face, tilting her head toward the children, who are huddling around the elf. Does she plan to attack them? But the barbarian considers the children with a glance and nods magnanimously.

The tunnel rat smirks and goes to talk to Wynne as she finishes tending Alistair’s burns. Wynne appraises the rat the same way she does every new student.

They nod at each other, gesturing toward the re-sealed doors as if they’re planning on leaving their precarious haven.

As Wynne speaks, Uldred considers what she knows. She could guess he’s in charge. She knows he’s allied with Loghain. Her testimony about Ostagar was enough to turn the council against him. He should have had her removed before she gave it, but he hadn’t expected such hypocrisy. As if she hadn’t deserted her post at Ostagar when the darkspawn overran the armies. Wynne probably considers defeating the Blight someone else’s job, though she might have inspiring tales. She’ll definitely prioritize the children.

Case in point. One of the older children approaches. Which is that? It’s almost time for her Harrowing, so Uldred should know the name… Petra. Uldred hadn’t wasted time tempting that one with blood magic.

Wynne and Petra argue, Wynne explaining something to Kit. It’s strange. Petra nods a few times and goes to check on the other children. Perhaps Wynne’s leaving Petra behind to defend against smaller demons while Wynne fights Uldred. _Ever the templar pawn, Wynne._

Their discussion goes on long enough for Uldred to get bored. After, Wynne talks with the children, who empty boxes and make a game of hiding in them, invisible from the templar side. _Clever, but it won’t be enough._

The rat reluctantly gets a bottle of lyrium from the witch and gives it to Wynne. The witch seems surprised and pleased, probably unused to polite behavior.

This rat is a leader. She chats next with Alistair, amiably gesturing toward Wynne, then the rat gobstops him. From her behavior, she’s apologizing for something. From her face, it’s not something she often does. She twists that boy around her little finger, and soon he’s grinning and shoving his hands in his pockets.

As the discussion continues, Alistair sends glances of mistrust toward both the street elf and the witch. Hard to tell if either notices, but he’s not subtle.

Next, the tunnel rat steps behind the kids, who finished their game and whose rapt attention is on the street elf’s story. She jerks her chin, then twitches her head to the side as if she’s retrieved him wordlessly a thousand times. Petra takes over as the tunnel rat and street elf move away from the others. During this discussion, the elf’s bloodlust appears just as the screen Uldred’s watching goes black.

“What’s going on?” Uldred asks.

The panicked nano pilot points at another screen. Alistair is approaching each Canary, which flickers out before he moves to the next. _Templar EMPs._ They can only watch until all Canaries in the staging room are dead.

“Try to nudge a few hostiles toward them. Even templars against the witch and Wynne, if you can manage it. Give me updates.” The nano pilot nods, his brow furrowing as he contemplates this new problem.

As much fun as arguing with Irving is, it’s time to check the defenses against the templars and their pawns. They’d started forbidden research here in the Harrowing Chamber. They caged three research subjects who twitch in dreams, studied by nano pilots. A band of silver nano covers their eyes, and speakers hum in their ears. In another area, Uldred’s pilots record observations of tiny demons, colorful plumes on long stalks. Each whispers Uldred’s desires through his chip. Uldred savors the new experience of not guarding against them.

“How are we progressing?” he asks the project head.

“We can limit how much nano the demons can accumulate, but they are still impossible to direct.” Her frustration is audible, but Uldred savors her ability to express emotion as another sign of their freedom.

One of the tiny crinoids releases a blast of fire from its center. At their size, it’s as hot as a small campfire. Its researcher jumps away, singed.

“I see,” Uldred says, allowing his disappointment to show. “Have you considered finding a spirit inclined to support our cause before offering the FadeChip?”

“Excellent point.” The nanobot pilot taps her chin. “The Chantry teaches us not to make deals with spirits, but that may be to limit our power.”

“I can assure you it is. Set these loose in the floor below and release the limiters on nano collection. They can weaken the last templars before they face us. Give it designs for mind-control nanites, too. Maybe the templars will find our spirit friends enthralling. After that, find a spirit sympathetic to our cause.”

“We don’t have much Fade since the templars cut off the Tower.”

“We do still have access to the Tower’s Fade servers. Find a demon that will play nice, and try again.”

“Yes, ser,” she says.

Uldred smiles and returns to the Harrowing Chamber to check the Canary feed. There’s still fighting everywhere. On his side are the nanobot pilots, faring well. The Canaries had shown a few nanobot pilots who weren’t fighting on either side until that idiot Niall found them. They’re in the storeroom but take triffles. They may be useful to offer to spirits who prefer to be abominations than demons. Prior demons from failed experiments are fighting everything they find. _We need only stay out of their way._ The challenge is the templars. There is a small group led by Ser Drass killing pilots and demons they can handle and escaping everything else. Hopefully, contact with these new feral demons will take care of Ser Drass. More importantly, the unsupervised group in the lobby led by the Knight-Commander has requested the Right of Annulment by now. If Uldred can recruit enough demons and get out, he can wipe out the few templars remaining before reinforcements arrive. Then they can join Loghain. Once they are Blight heroes, the Chantry’s directives will be irrelevant.

“There’s no way out,” Irving says when Uldred returns to their discussion. “Templars modified this tower to defeat your type.”

“You always lacked vision,” Uldred says.

Irving shakes his head. “Dozens of templars stand against you. Even you cannot survive that. Call off your demons and turn yourselves in. I can explain the misunderstanding. Greagoir trusts me. We can use that.”

“Now you’re on my side, Irving?” Uldred lets his voice purr. He’s tempted to give him a dose of blood nanites, but the victory will be _so_ much sweeter if he can convince him logically.

“We’ve always worked together,” Irving hedges.

Uldred scoffs. “Work _with_ me then: Renounce peace. Do what is necessary to achieve justice for mages.”

“Most templars want justice, too. We only need to work with them, Uldred. Convince the rest. You know the Chantry is too powerful to refuse, and we _are_ dangerous. Your actions will only strengthen their arguments.”

“No,” Uldred says, allowing himself to get angry. “ _I_ am dangerous. _You_ are a nug, begging your butcher to serve your flesh with good wine.”

“An angry bear enjoys a longer life?” Irving counters calmly.

“I am more than a bear: I have carefully groomed allies. I have the true Circle and more power than your most secret dreams.”

“Controlling people with blood nanites won’t help you survive this,” Irving says.

“Nanite control is not the only power the Chantry forbids.”

“You didn’t.” Irving does not hide his horror, and Uldred loses his patience.

“It is a gift the Chantry denies us, Irving,” Uldred shouts, “but Andraste’s teachings never did!” He collects himself to continue: “They would rather we remain nugs. I am more than that, now. The processing, the understanding! You have no idea.”

“You’re an abomination,” Irving whispers. Uldred decks him, as he’s wanted to do for years. Logic be damned.

 


	4. White Marble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s here? Let’s see… Fighting and conversation. Alistair fails at flirting. Zevran flirts despite everything. There’s a nasty dream at the end. That’s the chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta’d, but that’s why it’s reached your eyeballs tonight. Enjoy!

Kit is used to stone. What she isn’t used to is smooth, silent white stone and glass walls. Where she’s from, rough greige stone rings with the voices of her neighbors and hawkers, the brap of bike engines.

It doesn’t smell right, either. Stone should smell like motorcycle fumes, spices, shit, smoke, and grease of food and motors. Here it smells sharp and antiseptic with faint old blood. There’s a hint of rot and a sharp tang like gunpowder. It reminds her of the skittering fire demon.

“Brimstone,” says Wynne, sniffing. Kit jumps at her voice.

“Wynne, how do your spells work?” she asks to cover her start and fight the oppressive silence. Kit glances at Morrigan, who’s rolling her eyes.

“My silicone chip allows me to access the Fade.” Wynne doesn’t say ‘the chip in my head.’ “I link it to my nano factory.” She waves her staff. “It produces the right nano, which my chip directs to produce various effects.” Wynne seems to quote a text as they scan for danger. She continues: 

“I recently studied the ice effect Morrigan uses.” Wynne pauses. “It’s triggered by the heat of a body or machine. It has a brilliant latticework of carbon microtubes that expand a central drop of coolant, forcing it to absorb nearby heat. Water cools to ice, forming frost in the air. If the nanobot happens to be near a person, the water in their flesh turns to ice, too. Spent nanobots return to the staff, which deconstructs them.” _Maybe Wynne can somehow read from her FadeChip?_ Still she goes on:

“In the case of my stonefist spell, this staff excels at nano springs and armor plating. The stonefist routine gathers them and propels them at my target. Coordinating all the boosters is a processing challenge, let me tell you.” Wynne takes a breath.

“Hmm,” Kit says and then turns to Morrigan. “See why you didn’t tell me. Understood maybe half that.”

Morrigan smirks and says, “Perhaps you shall heed my future warnings.”

“Mage,” Alistair mumbles.

“What’s that, Alistair?” Morrigan retorts. “Which of us are you talking to? You cannot simply address me by your antiquated religious terms. Perhaps you should use names?”

“No, _mage!_ We’re under attack!” Alistair says, striding forward with his shield up.

A nanobot pilot ahead of them launches a fireball. It lands in their midst, singeing Kit’s armor and throwing her against a wall. _That… hurt._ Alistair charges, shouting and knocking the pilot down with his shield. The noise alerts two more, who emerge from a room. Kit sees shadows against the frosted glass in that room.

“Alistair, block the door!” Kit shouts.

“Right!” he replies.

“Shall we compete for points?” Zevran chuckles, coming alive as he draws his daggers. Kit had almost forgotten he was there, he moves so quietly.

“Absolutely!” she responds, but after that Kit doesn’t have time to think.

Stabs the mage focused on Alistair. _Like Daveth taught me._ The knife stops with a chink—chainmail—and nano springs from the floor like a fist of sand. Kit falls on her ass, and another pilot directs nano at her, but the pilot and her sparkling nano collapse. Zevran stands where she fell, whipping the blood off his blades and smiling.

“One,” he says and pulls Kit up. Her world flames white-hot as she’s knocked over again. She’s lost the skin against the nerves over her face and neck. Ends up air _hurts_ without skin. _Thank Stone for armor, or would be worse._

“Damn it, avoid the blast radius!” Alistair calls from behind his shield.

“Fireball,” Kit responds, flailing. “That was a fireball.” Her ears are ringing. _Which way is up?_

Motion nearby, Zevran’s alive. “Joyela, are you--?”

“Zev, help me by _killing_ it!”

Kit knows where the floor is. Start with that. She pushes off, blinking, and spots a non-friendly facing away. If she can kill that, she can take elfroot and stop her skin fucking screaming. _Motivation._ She jumps on the human to get her knife between the ribs and below the scapulas. The robe makes it harder, so she hooks in with her pickaxe, hitting the heart.

“One,” she grunts. While she downs an elfroot potion, Alistair knocks over the third but lets three more mages escape the meeting room. Kit’s annoyance from the itchy elfroot on her face is magnified by of the lack of reprieve.

The hostile pilots cast a susurrus of nano. Morrigan and Wynne are a smidge faster, and a new hostile is frozen then slammed over with an armor-plated fist, but it’s still moving. Zevran flashlights another, who flinches away, but Zev’s neck sprouts neon-green feathers before he takes the shot. _No, it’s a dart blown by the last pilot._

“Wipe the nug,” Kit mutters. _That can’t be good._

“Is that”—Wynne says.

Zev passes out but barely hits the floor before he jumps to his feet again. _He’s fine, coming over or no! attacking?_ His knife slices through her side. He’s clearly not playing around.

“What the fuck!” Kit shouts.

“Bloodstream pilot!” calls Morrigan, taking a gout of flame from the asshole.

“That one dies!” Kit says, dancing around Zevran’s knives. Alistair is on it. “Zevran, knock this shit off!” _Damn, the man knows his trade._ Blocks and dodges his slashes at wrists, elbows, and armpits. _Vital stuff in small spaces._

Kit dodges, knocks his blades aside, and suddenly it’s too easy.

“Joyela, why am I attacking you?” he says, blinking.

“Got the _bloodstream_ pilot,” Kit says, yanking the dart out if his neck. “Kill now, questions later.” Kit flanks the nearest pilot, keeping Zevran in sight. He finishes that one, and Kit moves on while Zevran works with Alistair.

“Two!” Kit shouts, plunging her weapons into the back of the last nanobot pilot. They watch it shudder and still.

“We are tied, then, Joyela.” Zev’s voice is jovial but forced through a tight throat.

“You are modest, assassin,” Morrigan accuses mildly. “You killed three.”

“Nonsense,” Zevran replies. “I will crow about my conquests, but I won’t steal Alistair’s rightful prize.” He bows to Alistair, who’s examining his blood-slicked sword, and throws him a cheeky smirk.

“So he says,” Alistair quips as he wipes his blade on dead-nanobot-pilot robe. Zevran laughs, throwing his head back.

“Some prizes fall where they will. Especially when they have their own will, no? Perhaps some day _I_ will fall into your bed, my friend,” he says, laughing again at Alistair’s confused frown.

“You foolish, noisy elf,” Morrigan says, wincing from her burn. “We need not attract more attention before we’ve recovered.”

“Horsefeathers,” Wynne swears and casts a dusting of nanites over Morrigan.

“Let them come,” says Zevran. Kit recognizes the throes of blood-lust. He seems invincible even as his skin blisters.

She puts a hand on his and says, “Give it a minute.”

Zevran flinches but grins at her. Wynne gives him a small dose of larger nanites, equipped to heal more over time. Kit watches in pained fascination as his facial burns re-knit into skin, glittering at the edges.

As Wynne casts a faster one-shot onto Kit’s pale blistering face and bleeding side, Zev smiles nervously and asks, “Is it putting the tattoo back right?”

Kit smirks at his transparent vanity and the invitation to examine him. “Yeah. How about mine?” She turns to show the right side of her face, the brand blocked out ugly under her eye.

“Perfection,” he murmurs.

Kit scoffs as Wynne moves on to Alistair, a concerned pinch between the healer’s eyebrows.

Zev admires Kit openly, more comfortable by the second. “I’m quite serious. Your tattoo gives you edges that highlight your mystique.”

“You sound like a wine snob from the Surface.”

Zevran tilts his head. “That’s not inaccurate. I know how to choose wine. And I’m from the Surface, as you say.”

“Nice shot, by the way,” Kit says, showing him the quickly-knitting wound where he had grazed ribs under her armor. “Glad didn’t have to kill you.”

“Ah, then it wasn’t a bad dream.” Zevran shivers. “Would it have been such a loss, I wonder?” he muses quietly.

Kit chokes on air. “Don’t say that.”

Zevran’s gaze snaps back to her. “Let’s be grateful we didn’t find out, no?” His face is smooth, no scar. He stands, nanites glittering off him like snow, and offers a hand. She takes it, and her burns don’t sting as Zevran pulls her up.

_Killed two people, worst burn yet, and could dive right back into battle._

“Is amazing,” she says, moving her shoulder and poking at the new, tender skin.

“Indeed. Thank the Maker for the indomitable Wynne.”

“What’s that, Zevran?” Wynne calls, slightly shrill and examining Alistair’s knitting wounds.

“You are unstoppable, my dear woman,” calls back in a reassuring tone. “I was just saying so to our fearless leader.” Zevran gestures at Kit.

“Ah. It helped that I was able to stand behind Alistair for so much of the battle.”

“I can certainly see the appeal,” he agrees and exchanges a smirk with Wynne. Kit glances at Alistair. _So Zevran’s like Leske._ It should endear her more, like the stories he told the younger mages, but she’s disappointed. She picks up her little pickaxe, cleans it, and tucks it in its holster.

“By the way, elf, what was that little contest?” Alistair’s voice rings with disgust.

“Much as I hate to agree with Alistair, it was in poor taste,” Morrigan shakes her head, arms folded. Wynne’s brow furrows in disapproval

Kit laughs. “Is a human thing? Inappropriate’s the _point_. Mind’s off killing. Are fighting for a number, not against a _person_.” She pulls her dagger out of the last pilot and wipes it clean on the body’s robe as she speaks. Wynne winces. Kit thunks the tip against Alistair’s armor. “You should try it some time.” Alistair flushes from the base of his neck to the roots of his hair. Ignores him because that’s just fucking awkward. “How’s our light?”

### 

It’s evening, and no one wants to fight by flashlight, so they head back to the staging hall with the kids.

Alistair knows she didn’t mean she should try… her. Sometime. He saw her concern as she was talking to Zevran, and Alistair hasn’t missed Zevran flirting with Kit. _What’s that name he calls her? Joyela?_ He considers learning another language and then realizes he’d never pull it off in Ferelden. _Maybe going to another country? No the Blight is here._ And Kit, which is more important than he realized.

Maybe it’s nothing to worry about. Zevran openly flirts with all the women, even Wynne. Or maybe that’s just how Zevran is. He certainly treats Alistair the same way. But not the children.

Maybe he should be seriously worried. On the way back to camp, Alistair bet Zevran he couldn’t win Morrigan over. Zevran won both the witch and the bet. If the elf decides to pursue Kit, Alistair suspects it would go the same, and he’s not sure what to do or if he even should. As Zevran said, Kit has her own will.

They set up their bedrolls and contribute travel rations to a fairly good soup. Kit calls it stone soup. The ingredient they don’t have is a stone, but she doesn’t seem fussed, so whatever. Alistair watches the nano-created flame rune dance over the enormous pot while the soup bubbles.

Alistair’s eating when Kit plops down between him and Wynne.

“Wynne, before we left camp, expressed concern about having time to take out the Tower’s trash. Is more than the Right of Annulment?”

“As if that isn’t enough,” Wynne says, and Kit rolls her eyes sympathetically, “but yes. We’re low on food.” Alistair’s rush of guilt for suggesting the Right _should_ be enacted is overwhelmed by a flood of guilt for eating so much.

“You have a lot of food,” he objects. _Not everything is my fault. Can’t be. I’m just one person._

“We have about 100 pounds of food and a _dozen_ people,” Wynne says, and Alistair remembers the 20-pound bag of barley that went into the huge pot. “With tap water and the pot, we could get four meals out of that. However—and it’s nothing against barley and smoked fish—but it’s been nearly a week since we’ve eaten anything else. Casting takes brainpower, and that means sugar.”

Kit shrugs. “I understand getting tired of eating the same things every day,” she says, and Alistair wonders about that. _Perhaps an eating dare, like the kill contest?_ “What’s in the pantry?”

Wynne says, “The Tranquil serve canned fruit, dried meat, root vegetables… a nice variety.”

“What floor?” Kit says.

“It’s two floors above this one,” Wynne says, and Alistair stops himself from nodding. _That could lead to awkward questions._

“Sixty pounds each buys four days at the current rate,” Kit says. Then she surprises Alistair by saying: “How will transport supplies?”

Wynne blinks. “What?”

“Want to move goods. Carry them? Does come in sacks or bring our own? Are carts or crates around? Does have dumbwaiters or working elevators?”

Wynne looks around the room, as if there might be a cart or stack of empty crates she hadn’t noticed before. “I must admit, I’ve no idea. No elevators, but...”

“Have some rope,” Kit muses. “Were bed sheets out there. Can rig something together. No carts, so tie close to the body, soft.”

Kit sends Wynne to have the kids gather rope, and Alistair elbows her in the shoulder as he shovels down the last of his bowl of barley with reconstituted jerky from their packs. He grins and swallows when she glares at him.

“How do you know so much?” he asks.

“Are lucky have Carta on your side.” Kit smirks. “Smuggling’s business.” 

“Yeah, but you never smuggled. You were muscle, weren’t you?”

Kit shrugs. “Picked up a few things from my co-workers.”

“Picked up a few things, huh?” Alistair waggles his eyebrows and _why am I trying for innuendo here?!?_

“I don’t sleep with co-workers.”

“Oh, that’s… too bad.” Alistair realizes that could be taken weirdly and clarifies: “For me, I mean.” _Nope that’s worse._ “For teasing you about it, I mean.” _That doesn’t make sense try again._ “I have one less thing to tease you about. Not that I would…” _Just shut up._ “Ah, I’ll help Wynne gather rope.”

He beats a hasty retreat. 

### 

Zevran finds Kit stringing rope through the wide, decorative hem of some spare sheets.

“I thought we were going to scavenge sheets from the Tower?” he says.

“Did too but checked the boxes. Has a hundred flat sheets in it.” She gestures at an open box. “Nice stuff, but white. Not much better than frosted glass.”

Zev raises his eyebrows. “So these are not for hauling food?”

Kit grunts agreement. “Have plenty of sheets and rope. Say they don’t need walls, but _I_ do.” She eyes the space she plans to cover, a gap between piles of boxes. “If help, will make you one.”

“Or we could make a large room and share,” Zev says easily, grabbing a length of rope.

Kit snorts. “Right. You know, never fraternized. Didn’t occur until you appreciated Alistair.”

“Ah, so my overtures are not too subtle. I wondered.”

“Is clueless. Doubt even knows what gay is.” Kit smirks.

 _That_ is something to clear up fast. “Bisexual,” he says.

“What?” Kit says, cluelessly.

“I, Joyela,” he says, circling his arm quickly to get the kinks out of the rope, “am interested in both men _and_ women. So I am in earnest when I imply fraternizing. If it bothers you, I will stop.”

Kit thinks about it. “No, doesn’t bother me. Am not sure why’d be interested, though.”

“You’re dangerous and beautiful,” Zev says more softly than he intends.

Kit’s gaze makes him restless but also invites him to elaborate. He sets down the rope so it doesn’t tangle.

“Judging by your build alone, as Carroll did, you should be sweet and innocent, no?” Zevran waves his hands. “You twist that expectation to your advantage. Even your smile is deadly.” _Especially the one she’d been wearing during the demon fight._ “You are unexpectedly, provably _dangerous_. The way you carry yourself declares it to be so.” Zev’s frustration doesn’t ebb. Should he explain how precious that is, and how alluring?

“Is harsh, Zevran. Would turn it off if I could,” Kit snaps.

Zevran looks up. “Turn it—you truly wish to?”

Kit sighs, puts the new curtain down, and stands. “Can’t scare marks here. Would run, where? To abominations?” She jerks her chin at him. “Are friendly. Any recommendations?”

Zevran pouts. “I just flirt with everyone, and it comes off as friendly,” he says.

Kit raises her eyebrows: He can’t bullshit her unless she allows it. He sighs.

“It’s not easy. You’ll need practice and a mirror.”

“Didn’t expect easy but don’t have a mirror,” she says.

“That explains so much,” Zevran says, flirting like it’s a mask but meaning it anyway. He considers. “I turned off my ’cell’s Fade access, but you can use the camera and screen like a mirror.”

“Give me that.” Kit holds out her hand like an Antivan diplomat demanding some essential document from her valet. _Well._ He’d offered, and the mannerisms underline her need for practice. Or power. Zevran digs out the cell.

Kit needs help to open the camera app, but once there she sneers and glowers at it, making frustrated grunts. Zevran can’t look away. Her facial threats are amazing.

Finally, she tosses the phone back to him with a huff. Zevran hands it back.

“Try some diplomatic expressions, no?”

Kit throws her hands up. “That’s what I was doing!”

Zev laughs and says, “Truly?”

Kit glowers at him again, which delights him more. “Truly. Ugh, why the sod can’t I do this?”

Zevran picks up the curtain without waving it too much, tempting as that is. “You’ve needed intimidation, yes? You must show willingness to commit the violence your very presence threatens. It was why your Carta valued you.”

“Yeah, yeah, good point.”

“I would help, if you desire.”

“What?” Kit looks up sharply from her end of the curtain, and Zev contrives impulsively to look as innocent as possible.

Then he laughs. “I’ve always needed to be underestimated, seem less dangerous than I am. Perhaps we could exchange tips.” Zevran climbs up a pile of boxes with one end of their curtain’s rope in hand.

“Alright, Zev.” Kit agrees, climbing a pile of boxes on the other end of her new door. “Teach me.”

“In full view of so many children? You’re very naughty, Joyela,” Zevran says in a low voice so as not to reach the ears of the children listening to Petra’s story nearby.

Kit snorts indelicately as they string the curtain up, adjusting the tension of the rope to control its height. “Doubt there’s much left to learn in _that_ department.”

“That is very good to know,” he says, smirking as he hops down again.

Kit climbs down properly. “Exchange of tips sounds good,” she says. They’ve both landed inside her new bedroom.

Zev dives into his most flippant bow. “Of course, milady. It is yours to be served, lest I get beaten severely about the head and shoulders.” Kit taps his head while it’s in reach.

“I hate to interrupt such a worthy endeavor,” Morrigan says, tugging the sheet aside, “but could we put a few more curtains up? I prefer to have something between me and Alistair’s nighttime habits.”

Kit winces sympathetically. “Lessons later, then.”

“Perhaps I should consider Alistair’s tent,” Zevran says, just for the roll of Morrigan’s eyes.

### 

A man screams in Kit’s face. It’s Urthemiel. Is beautiful, wearing an exquisite maroon suit that perfectly complements the fawn brown of his skin. Is too tall, alluring but cold and unapproachable. His scream at the unreal green sky is more rage than pain. It twists into a darkspawn shriek as his skin greys with dark charcoal veins. It looks strange in the green mist. He pushes, _makes_ his rage stronger than his pain and the blend of pain and rage tears Kit’s dream apart.

“Suck a rock teat, barefaced dirt sniffer!” she shouts, sitting up in a tangle. She’s on the floor, which is too reflective in the dim light. White marble. _Oh. I’m in the Tower. How’s that possible?_

Alistair sits on the floor just inside her curtain, his sad smile breaking into laughter.

“That’s a first,” he says.

“Fucking right, have never done that,” Kit says. “Where the nug-humping blighted Roads was I?”

“So, it’s true. Dwarves don’t dream.”

“Fuck, no! Why would do that?”

“Usually it’s not that bad,” Alistair says.

“Didn’t make lyrium-addled sense! Mean yeah at the time but thinking about it now… no.”

“Actually, that part’s normal for dreams,” he says, sliding next to Kit’s bedroll and dropping his voice. “It’s the Joining. The connection to the darkspawn lets you tap into their group mind, more when you’re asleep.”

“Bronto shit up to my waist,” Kit swears as calmly as possible, swinging her feet off the bedroll and tugging him next to her, off the cold stone. “How do you get any sleep?”

Alistair glances away from her. She remembers Morrigan’s comment about nighttime habits.

“Ah,” she says, getting the full significance of why Alistair is awake.

“Some nights it’s not so bad,” he says reassuringly, eyes drifting to his boots, next to her socks. “It gets worse as time goes on. When we left, mine weren’t bad enough to need blocking exercises. It got worse after Ostagar.” He turns back to face her, “I’m sorry I don’t have better for you.”

Kit grunts her acceptance. _What choice do I have?_ “How did you know I would wake up tonight?”

“They seemed,” Alistair waves his hands vaguely, “more active tonight. I wasn’t sure, but I knew if I was right you’d need me.”

“Thank you, Alistair. You’re a good friend.” She bumps their shoulders together.

“Hmpt,” he says, bumping back and smiling. They sit like that in quiet companionship until the rest of the camp rouses. Alistair gets up to make breakfast for the hungry hoards, and Kit pokes through the camp one more time before their food haul today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, but I’m keeping the part of every fem!Warden/Zev romance where Alistair still has a hopeless crush. I guess I see it as a way to show how to have a hopeless crush in a respectful way. He’ll get over it before the Battle of Denerim.


	5. Resting Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments on a cyberpunk mantel.   
> Kit the biker finds a so-called ‘sweet ride’ and tempts Zevran.   
> Morrigan slips about a book.   
> Wynne and Alistair don’t save… a monster. Whatever he may have been before.   
> Morrigan slips about becoming a spider.   
> Kit the mechanic finds a new toy.   
> Wynne over-protects the children.   
> Kit makes faces at Zevran, and he’s tempted again. They form a strategy and then notice something odd about Morrigan & Alistair.

“Zevran, guess what found.”

Zevran looks up from sharpening his daggers. Kit is vibrating, arms folded. Zevran pulls back his fresh-plundered hood. The thick fabric and open construction will protect from nano spray but permit vision and sound. A biker helmet like Kit’s has no visor but complete ear protection. More importantly, Zevran’s new hood covers his neck.

He follows as Kit bobs and weaves through the maze of cardboard boxes and plastic-wrapped pallets. Little dents and tears in each unit show that the kids tore tracking chips out.

In a corner near the main entrance, Kit pulls canvas tarp off a scooter with a flourish. “The kids say _this_ is an _offroader_.”

Zevran grimaces. _Is she serious?_ He smiles, but she doesn’t smile back, even bouncing delightedly.

“Which roads would this… vehicle go off?” he asks skeptically, wondering if translation lost meaning. “What speeds?” He examines the tires. The treads are deep, but…

“Low speeds, am guessing. Belongs to their botanist,” Kit says. “Flees and chases plants.”

“Rumors whisper of botanical brutality in places,” Zevran says, only half-joking.

“Plants must be very slow.”

“Plants _usually_ root in place,” Zevran says, eyeing the tiny vehicle. _How fast are Brecilian trees supposed to be?_

“Good thing. How’d control it going fast?” Kit releases a guffaw, eyes glittering and lip twitching at the corner. Zevran’s never seen her so joyous. _How did I earn this insight?_

“Is the basket for collecting seeds? Perhaps fruits?” he asks, poking at a cute woven basket strung in front of the handlebars.

“Could imagine hitting a bump at top speed?” she says. “Paragons! Fruit would go flying!” She plops onto the seat, waving her hands and legs in demonstration. The moped wobbles, but she balances easily.

Zevran chuckles, watching her. “Cherries and pears in the air.” _Shame it doesn’t translate with the same innuendo_.

“I mean, ‘there are no old, bold bikers,’ but handles aren’t enough. You need something to grip,” she says, swinging her knees through the gap between the front wheel and her seat.

Zevran’s brain sticks on the idea that as a biker, she uses her legs a _lot_. He imagines her solid thighs gripping him: hips or head or even his leg.  

“Must be,” Zevran says, trying to wet his lips with his dry tongue. He shakes his head to clear it.

“Here’s the best part,” she says, flipping open a panel with screws carefully set aside. “It’s got 40cc’s!”

Zevran smiles. “I’m sorry, Joyela, you’ve lost me. I ride, but if I want my ride to change, I tell my mechanic. ‘Make it go faster,’ or ‘It has a catch when I turn right,’ or similar.”

That triggers a tirade. This is _not_ a good application for this engine size; she might understand if this was a grocery-getter, and she’d make it more maneuverable by… Here he only understands every other word, but he never interrupts and saves his questions for when her rant slows. She’s beautiful like this, and he savors the pleasure of watching her.

“Nug toes,” Kit says wistfully, turning the handlebar again, “I haven’t ridden in over a week. If I’ve got to save the world, someone should at least offer a way to blow off steam.”

“It’s been a while since my last ride, as well.” Zevran smiles his most seductive smile with a slight exaggeration, in case it needs to be a joke. “I would love to volunteer…” He poses subtly, giving her his best angle.

“A bike, hunter, not a person,” Kit says, smirking but admiring him.

“Oh? You are well-provided with such entertainments? Who are you riding then?” Zevran says, hoping she is not _that_ close with Alistair. Or Morrigan. He can’t imagine either would share.

“No one, if you must know, but that doesn’t bother me as much as missing my bike.”

“Oh, no? A person, such as myself, would not drive well?” Zevran feigns affront, laughing at his own bubbling hope. “What do you get riding a lifeless piece of machinery?”

“Lifeless,” Kit scoffs. Then she considers. “Concentrate on the street, anticipate my moves maybe three ahead, and react to traffic, remembering invisible problems when know the road.”

This description is fraught with delicious innuendo. “You plan based on the… circumstance?”

“Yes,” Kit missed it. _I suppose the story of comedic objections about circumstances is Antivan._

“I see. Do you ride with others?”

Kit shrugs. “Might chase someone. Sometimes rode with Leske, following because I cut the crowd faster.”

“Ah,” Zevran slows, “and who is ‘Leske’?”

“Are _you_ jealous now, hunter?” _Hunter again. Can she smell the Dalish on me?_ “Is a good friend. Tried ‘benefits,’ but didn’t work out. Paragons, hope he’s okay.”

“I see,” Zevran drawls. “So in the street, you anticipate others’ moves, read what they will do? And if I were to give you moves to anticipate? A course to plot?” He trails his fingers above the tattoos under his shirt. “Something to keep your mind off things? Would that help?”

Kit stands. “Only have one thing on your mind, don’t you?” Her voice is light and mocking, but her eyes follow his fingers. A mix of signals, but there’s enough to push.

Zevran steps, moving into the edge of her personal space but not touching. He searches in her eyes and says, “I’m quite serious,” in a low voice.

Kit swallows. Her next breath catches in her throat. Her voice drops, too. “Will remember.” She steps back.

As they weave back through the maze, Zevran realizes she’d finally smiled.

###

They traverse yet another level of white-marble floors and frosted glass. Everyone is on edge, which makes sense for those in unfamiliar surroundings, but Morrigan notices that Wynne is the edgiest, shoulders hunched and glancing around. _Can’t be better than darkspawn in my own familiar haunts._

“Wynne,” Morrigan says, “you have a remarkable grasp of the physics, for a hacker.”

“Hacker?” Wynne blinks but keeps an eye on their surroundings.

“As I understand it, Circle nanobot pilots steal bot designs from the Fade.”

Wynne scoffs. “You don’t make yours from scratch. You use the same designs I do.”

“You’re correct about that much,” Morrigan says. “I _use_ the same designs.”

“Your cleverness will do no good if you don’t share it,” Wynne chides her.

“If I develop designs, I alone should reap the rewards.”

“Your mother didn’t develop them? Or steal them from the Circle?”

“’Tis far more likely the Circle stole designs from her. I expect we’ll find one of her files here.” Morrigan snaps her mouth shut, but perhaps they took the slip as bragging.

“You idolize her so much?” Wynne asks.

Morrigan laughs. “Not I.”

“Yet you believe her to be the author of nanobot designs centuries old?”

_Centuries?_ Well, that confirms her suspicions regarding her mother.

“Think what you want, crone,” Morrigan says, flicking her hand and turning away. “It matters not to me.”

###

Wynne does her best not to recognize her former student under the first bloated abomination of nano and flesh, but the student’s gleam sparks a sunken eye, and it tilts a head covered in his particular shade of hair. Memories of his younger mischievous laugh assault her. Memories of how he demonstrated his skill and won friends in the Circle after his Harrowing. Wynne ignores all of that. This _monster_ would kill their little group as they climb. _Who would be next?_

_The children._ But this man had been a child. Wynne had watched him grow into his abilities, been proud when he passed his Harrowing. _No, not a man._ Wynne focuses on the bloated nano flesh, the claws.

Alistair, she thinks, casting a protective glyph over him. She’d watched him grow in bursts on his class visits to her Circle. Children grow up faster when you aren’t watching.

Wynne’s Stone Armor moves with her, linked to her proprioception. Wynne imagines herself as a barrier between these horrors and the children downstairs. The abomination knocks Alistair aside and comes for her.

“Alistair! Stone take you, solrocka, get that damn thing!” Kit has her hands full with her own _monster_. “Zevran, Alistair’s down, protect Wynne!” but the rogue ignores her and stabs the abomination they are cutting apart.

_Sweet of her, but I have a few tricks up my knitted sleeve._ Her warm staff hums as nano spews out and forms a ball of armor. Not-her-student lifts his claws as he approaches. All the tiny thrusters pointing the same direction, link them, and go! The nano-built rock smashes into his chest, knocking him over before he can land the blow.

Her student—no, the abomination!—gets back up, but Wynne’s spell has given Alistair time to get back to his feet. He slices through the monster’s back. Wynne tries not to watch the glint in its eyes go out. As it collapses in a disorganized pile of bones, nano, and blood, Alistair looks Wynne in the eye and nods.

“Alistair, Morrigan too!” Kit shouts. Wynne returns his nod as he scrambles to stop another monster from clawing Morrigan, who’s been too effective with the ice for her own good.

Perhaps these abominations—or the nano pilots they were—defend people dear to _them_. Wynne takes a shivering breath and sprays healing nanites at Morrigan.

At the end of the fight, nano and blood ooze into the cracks of the white marble floor. _He served hours of punishment here as an apprentice._ It’s the job of Wardens to kill the Archdemon, but… _Would he be alive if I hadn’t spoken against Uldred? How many of his friends will die? Could anything hold me here when an opportunity this important calls?_

“What were those?” Zevran asks.

Wynne takes a breath and answers as she always had to. “Abominations are a security breach. Strong emotion drew spirits in the Fade. They possessed this nano pilot due to weakness.” Then she admits: “Mages here may have lured spirits on purpose.”

Zevran asks, “Why in the Maker’s name would they do that?”

“Language, young man,” Wynne says automatically. To her amusement, Zevran shifts his hips. She sighs. “Did you notice how much faster and more powerful abominations are than pilots?”

“Yes, but,” Zevran’s smile drops, “how much power is worth _that_?”

Wynne says, “Survival of those you love is a potent motivator.”

Zevran falls silent, and Wynne pities his loveless existence.

“I don’t care what Kit said,” Morrigan snaps, responding to Alistair’s quieter comment. “I had it under control!”

“Right,” Alistair drawls, louder now. “Weren’t you teetering on collapse when Wynne healed you and I distracted the things attacking you? What was your plan, turn into a frog?”

“Would a spider have been sufficient?” Morrigan asks.

“Wait, what?” Alistair looks gobsmacked.

Wynne suppresses a laugh at the look on Morrigan’s face: satisfaction that slides into horror when Kit asks, “Morrigan, have been holding out on us?”

“That much is obvious,” she pouts, using her glance to reflect the accusation back at everyone in the room. 

Well. Wynne has no argument for that, she supposes. _Do I belong in a Circle anymore?_ She resolves then never to dress like a barbarian.

“Morrigan, we need combat detail! Shit, strategic detail! You can _turn_ into a _spider_? I mean, Paragons! How does that even work?”

“The nano takes the right shape if I’m thinking sufficiently spider-like,” Morrigan says. “It accesses the prototype from the Fade.”

“Can you teach it to Wynne?” Kit asks.

“No,” both Wynne and Morrigan say.

“O-kay. Never mind.” Kit glances between them, and her frustration with Morrigan deflates. “How can you… be… a spider?” Wynne tries not to let her curiosity show.

“The nano shapes around me _unlike_ abominations, who are broken by their form. Also, I can change back and remain in control.” Wynne tries to figure out how Morrigan becomes spider-size without breaking. Morrigan sighs and elaborates: “It’s a very large spider.”

“I want you to work with Alistair to make your spider abilities combat-ready while we search the room.”

They’re in the Tranquil workshop, so Wynne doubts they’ll find much of use here, but that never stops Kit from looking. Something about ‘insulting her Duster heritage’ if they don’t.

“Wynne, can you make heads or tails of this stuff?” Kit asks, examining tools. “It’s fascinating.”

Zevran looks over her shoulder, standing much too close, and Alistair scowls at them. Or is that because he’s talking with Morrigan? Ah, well, Kit’s a smart girl; nothing will come of Zevran’s flirtations or Alistair’s interest.

“Can you make use of these contraptions, oh queen of such things?” Zevran asks. Wynne rolls her eyes.

“Might,” Kit admits speculatively, “if knew what they did.” She raises an eyebrow at Wynne. _More information never hurt one’s own cause._

“That’s a metal shredder,” Wynne says, pointing to one device with tiny gaps between jagged metal teeth, then the lyrium-laced, shielded box with the hole in the top and an output pan. “That one breaks metal shreds into a very fine powder. The robot over there can fuse metal powder into any programmed shape. It’s for designing and repairing armor and weapons.” This last device is an open box frame with controls at the bottom and a tube to feed the powder onto the layering stage. The tube ends in a fusing nozzle.

“Have enough food for another day, right?” Kit says eagerly.

“Yes, but”—

“Didn’t mention? Am a mechanic,” she says. Wynne’s head jerks back, but her companions smirk proudly. “Get this today, food tomorrow. Is risky for supplies, but are exhausted. No point falling over on our way to the pantry.”

Wynne nods. _Especially not with so many willing to tip us. Violently._

###

“Tell me, brightest Joyela, have you ever seen the like of this tower?” Zevran asks when they are all seated around the fire, watching the barley and fish cook. There was a supply of metal dust in the workshop, so Kit’s making tiny figurines for practice and handing them to the children. At Wynne’s signal, Petra collects the children for their own stories.

“Different,” Kit replies, equally comfortable with kids learning what they battle, “but fought worse at Ostagar.”

“You refer to the darkspawn, I gather?” Morrigan says from across the cook pot.

“I was at Ostagar, too,” Wynne says. “This is worse.”

Kit says, “Darkspawn _smell_ is worse.”

“They smell quite pleasant,” Wynne says primly. _That uptight demeanor could be fun to unravel. How to go about it?_

Kit wrinkles her nose. “What monster smells like _apples_? Evil smells like vomit or shit or rotting flesh. Apples? Have a little self-respect.”

“The darkspawn weren’t people,” Wynne says, and for a moment she looks her age. Pallid wrinkles and thin lips, bags under her eyes, shrinking into her bulky sweater. Then it recedes again, and her vibrancy matches the sweater: a glowing sunset, one last flare of beauty and life before the darkness and the Fade. 

“Not true,” Kit says. “Once, every darkspawn was a person. Wait. Unless… can someone be born a darkspawn?”

“That’s not what she means,” Zevran says. “These are people she knows.”

“We don’t know these people, Wynne. Darkspawn are just as bad for us.”

Alistair and Wynne exchange a glance.

“I thought you knew each other from Ostagar,” Kit accuses.

Alistair shrugs. “I’m trying to imagine those people gone, killed by these monsters, but sometimes…”

Zevran now understands Alistair’s disgust over their game, but he’s more determined than ever to get him to join.

Wynne says, “Sometimes I can see the people behind the nano. A mannerism, or a birthmark. Hair color.”

Alistair turns to Kit. “I keep thinking of your tattoo, Kit, how I’d recognize it even under a layer of nano.”

“That wouldn’t happen, Alistair,” Wynne reassures him. “She’s not a nano pilot.”

“It’s just an image that’s been bothering me.” Despite his casual words, Alistair’s gaze on Kit is intense.

Zevran’s had enough of this line of conversation.

“Don’t forget mine, Alistair,” Zevran purrs. “I wonder if my others would be revealed if I were to become an abomination.”

“You have others?” Alistair says, intrigued. _Oh, ho!_

Zevran skims a hand down his tight-fitting tee shirt to his hip as he tilts his head to show the tattoo trailing from his face down his neck. “You didn’t think they stopped at my collar, did you?” He pulls up the corner of his tee to expose another swirling mark curling into the hollow near his hip bone over his low-slung black pants.

“Keep your shirt on,” Alistair says, laughing and waving him off. “I’m sure they’re excellent.”

Zevran pouts and lets his shirt fall. Kit looks disappointed. _Interesting._  

“My point is,” Alistair continues, “if we fail we’ll be prey up there. I hope to keep us free of possession, at least.”

“I’ve survived so far without your help, you big oaf,” Morrigan grouses, cheeks pink as she glares at him.

Zevran shivers. He never wants to be puppeted by bloodstream pilots again. _The nano is there; it will be easier next time._ Yet here is something worse. Taken over by nanites and surrounded by nanobots, controlled by a chip… _Is the pilot aware?_

“Can we purge the blood nanites from Zevran before we go back out?” Kit asks. _Wait, she noticed and interpreted my shiver? She’s not the best at reading people._

“The only defense I know is the Litany of Adralla,” Wynne says. Zevran notices she’s not claiming they’re in no danger from him. “If it’s played when someone tries to control Zevran, it will prevent that control, but it’s in the storeroom several floors up.”

“Will work on getting that _and_ the food,” Kit says, brushing her side where he’d stabbed her. “Don’t want to feel his blade again.” She winks, Maker help him.

“I have another blade I could give you,” Zevran says in a low voice, teasing.

Kit laughs but her eye gleams. “Is a horrible line, and will give you a blade point-first if you try it again,” she jokes.

Alistair laughs, and the others smile, but Zevran just hums his acknowledgement.

###

A little later, Zev sits next to Kit with his thin barley-and-fish soup as she listens to Alistair and Morrigan bicker about Alistair’s dog-based heritage.

“Do you truly want to improve your masks?” Zevran asks. When Kit nods, he offers, “Would after dinner suit you?”

When they finish their soup, they find a gap between the boxes out of view.

“Close your eyes but change nothing. Feel the muscles in your face, shoulders. Also, the way you’re standing. You’ve no need to say how it feels, but put that collection of sensations under ‘scary as fuck.’”

Kit’s eyes fly open. “Shit, just feels normal.”

“Joyela,” Zevran says, laughing, “you have resting ‘scary as fuck’ face.”

“Did you call me a fuck face,” Kit grunts, but she’s teasing. She squeezes her eyes shut, concentrating, then opens them with a new expression.

“That set of sensations is different, no?”

Kit freezes. “Yes.”

“This one goes under ‘prepare to explode in a spray of blood and guts.’”

“Shit.” Her features twist across her face.

“It’s in your eyes, Joyela.” Zevran pauses as Kit looks at him. “You always look angry, the way your eyes…” Zevran reaches slowly to give her a chance to object and presses fingers along her brow. “Can you smooth them out?”

Kit nods. “All right, here’s one,” she says. Then she opens her eyes, looks directly at Zev, and sneers.

It’s incredibly dangerous, sending a thrill through him, from his toes, through his groin, and all the way up his spine. The expression is intoxicating, a promise of battle or sex. Zev has to restrain himself from jumping her right then. The effort knocks him back a step.

“Oh, fuck,” he gasps before he can stop himself.

Kit chuckles. “I’ve always gotten good results with that one.”

“What do you call it?” Zev asks, still recovering.

“It’s the ‘My boss always gets what he wants’ look.”

“Lucky boss,” Zevran mutters. “You can have what you want from me, I assure you.”

“That so?” She purrs. It’s equal parts promise and threat. Something quivers pleasantly in Zevran’s belly. “Will keep that in mind.”

Zevran imagines rope against his skin, cut with her knife. The thought is delicious. “Joyela…” _What were we talking about?_ He searches her face.

“What about this one?” Kit says, smirking, then shows him a new expression, much less threatening than the last.

_Right. Diplomacy. So she doesn’t accidentally threaten or frighten the wrong people._

Zev takes a breath and tries to put words to her expression. But there is nothing. Words for emotions slither away. His roiling hormones calm as he tries to solve the puzzle.

“This is a hard one. You’re a stranger on the street. Not a threat, but not a mark. This expression says, ‘Don’t see me. Don’t notice me. I’m not here.’”

Kit nods. “That will have to do for now. It’s my ‘crowds’ face. I’ve been using it a lot. New game plan. You negotiate. I’ll use that face so I don’t scare them off.”

“What will I be negotiating for?” Zevran asks, startled the trust implied.

“We need resources, we need allies, and in the Circle, we need everyone to survive unless they want to kill us.”

“Even the mages?”

“Nano pilots agreed to fight the Blight.” She pats a pouch, presumably where she keeps evidence of the contract.

Zevran considers. Pitting one danger against another could fulfill the ancient Warden contract on the latest Archdemon, but a Duster would see it differently.

He smiles and says, “I’m to represent your interests, then?”

“Huh. Guess you will,” she says. A half-dozen kids pull Alistair and Morrigan past, Morrigan with more reluctance. “Hey, Alistair, am a boss!” She grins that terrifying grin, and Alistair smiles fondly back.

“I’ve been telling you!” Alistair says.

“For some reason,” mutters Morrigan, loudly enough for all to hear. Alistair winces.

Kit puts on her ‘crowd’ face.

“Joyela,” Zevran says as the pair is pulled off by children. “That was not doubt of you. It was frustration with him.”

Kit tilts her head. “That fits. Are sure?”

Zevran shrugs. “Men are idiots to Morrigan, who _also_ seems personally offended that Alistair, the biggest idiot to hear her tell it, refuses leadership. Trust me when I say that political choices can affect personal feelings.”

“Suppose that’s something to watch,” Kit says, gazing after them contemplatively.

“Yes, my Warden. I suppose it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought Kit/Zev was a slow burn? My Morrigan/Alistair is the slowest Enemies to Friends to Lovers you ever did see. I've no intention of moving them to Friends this work, but we'll see.


	6. Tranquil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to get this out to everybody, but there aren’t enough hours in the day. Here’s my solution: I’m “storing” the rest of this fic on AO3. I will work through the final polish chapter by chapter over time and move this note with my progress.

Zevran likes watching at the back of the group, at least with these companions. So many excellent asses to gaze at, should other scenery be wanting. Unfortunately, Morrigan has caught on and claimed the very back of the bunch to avoid his gaze, but that just means he can tease her with appreciative glances at the others, paired with eyebrow waggles. Also an excellent way to pass the time.

“Warden!” Wynne hisses. She’s leading after some debate and discussion of tactics.

“What?” Kit and Alistair chorus back softly. They look at each other, then Alistair waves her forward.

“The nano supply room is here,” Wynne says.

“Why are we whispering?” Kit says.

“I don’t know what we face. Storeroom supplies are useful; there’s no telling which faction may have claimed it.”

Kit glances over her shoulder at the other three, draws weapons, nods, and slips in the door. Zevran follows, but there’s one man there, no weapon in sight, blinking owlishly at Kit, who’s already sheathing her daggers. Zevran steps back into the hall, swinging the door wide.

“It’s clear,” he says in a normal voice, sheathing his daggers as well. “Why do you make us worry so, my dear Wynne?” 

“Don’t say that,” Kit says as they join her in the storeroom. “I like caution.” A reason they might not be compatible. Zevran much prefers diving into danger headfirst.

The man standing in the middle of the stockroom regards them with an oddly blank expression.

“Owain!” Wynne says. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello Wynne,” he says. “I am trying to put the stockroom to rights. Don’t look too closely: it’s not in a fit state to be seen.”

“Righting the stockroom? There are abominations loose!” Zevran says, bewildered.

“Yes,” Owain replies in the same flat voice. “I tried to leave, but there was a barrier sealing the door closed.”

“Owain, you should have said something,” Wynne says. “I would have let you in.”

“Thank you, but I would prefer to be here. It’s familiar.”

Zevran grits his teeth to keep from asking about the Litany of Adralla.

“What about others? Has anyone come through here?”

“Enchanter Niall visited with some others.”

Wynne nods. “Good. He was in that meeting, so he would know what we’re up against.”

“He came for the Litany of Adralla,” Owain explains. “As a senior enchanter, he was able to complete the proper forms himself.” Zevran keeps his jaw clenched to keep from ranting about blood mages not caring about proper forms.

“He took the Litany? Then the blood magic started with Uldred. I was hoping it was a desperate few.”

“What will we do now?” asks Zevran, hoping his voice is even. There will be more blood mages. He might be turned against Kit and the others again.

“We catch up to Niall as soon as we’re able,” Kit says.

“Don’t worry,” Wynne says to Zevran. “They need the right frequency to control you.”

“Or just dart us again,” Morrigan says. “Anyone could be thralled if we’re not careful.”

Kit says, “Wynne, is there anything else here that would be useful?”

“As you are a newcomer to the Tower, I should inform you that all equipment must be checked out. As our systems are down for now, you must fill out this form,” Owain says, handing her three sheets of paper. “In triplicate.”

“What! This isn’t even carbon paper.”

“That was considered an extra expense, based on the unlikelihood of our systems going down.”

Alistair laughs nervously. “Sorry. It just—sorry.” He takes another minute to get it under control, and Zevran figures it out. No one expected this. Zevran pats him on the shoulder, although armor probably absorbs most of the impact.

Kit just twitches her eyebrows before continuing. “Wynne, anything worth filling out a form in triplicate?”

“No,” she says. “We should be sufficiently supplied, except for food.”

Kit nods and turns to Owain. “Anything we can get you?”

“I believe I am well-supplied for now. Thank you.”

Kit eyes him, and Zevran wonders if she’s planning on asking after the man’s food, but Kit shrugs. “Good luck,” she says, and they head out again.

### Alistair POV

Although they’d cleaned out most of the way to the pantry, Alistair wiping out the Canary-brand cameras with his EMP as they went, the denizens of the Tower don’t stay still. Their raiding party encounters three nanobot pilots on the way up.

Morrigan turns into a huge spider and webs one while the other casts a wide enough fire spell to singe them all. Unfortunately, spider form uses too much nano to do casting, but she leaps on a second mage, biting him as Zevran slips behind while he’s… distracted. Alistair closes with the third before he can cast again. Thrust, slice, down. Kit takes out the webbed one while she’s incapacitated. They finish the mages without getting injured enough to justify healing, but Wynne casts it anyway. A tiny burn from a pellet of fire nano heals under a hole in the sleeve of Alistair’s flannel.

Morrigan’s nano peels off her and slurps into her staff. Kit gives her a pointed glance, but refrains from saying how much easier previous fights could have been if she’d been using the spider form earlier. Which is less than Alistair would have done, but that’s why Kit’s in charge.

They continue to the dining hall, which they need to get through to the pantry. The sound of nano clacking fills the sterile white room, the sound ricocheting off the classy but institutional tables and butt-fitted plastic chairs. Getting around one of the octagonal support columns in this room, Alistair sees a cluster of demons, each shaped like a swarm of stingrays. They’re attacking three Tranquil. One of the demons flows into a Tranquil’s mouth, puppeting him to turn and spit a freezing spray of nano at the party. _No, this should not be possible._ The other two Tranquil flee to watch on the other side of the room. The two remaining demons dither before joining the attack. _Perhaps attracted by our mages?_ The possessed Tranquil’s skin roils, sinking and bulging as the nano restructures his body.

“Blessed Bride!” Zevran says with feeling, unsheathing his knives. “Tranquil are supposedly safe from possession, no?”

“The abomination is using the demon’s chip – is that even possible?” Morrigan asks as she shoots a small burst of nano at the abomination.

“Kill first,” Kit shouts, dodging a second spray of ice. “Questions later!”

So, Alistair charges the abomination, slashing as efficiently as he can, but he flinches under the gaze of the two remaining Tranquil. He sets off an EMP as the abomination recovers from this initial attack. Nano rains to the floor with a kind of _phish!_ noise and the demons pause appraisingly. Not much is left of the demons after that much shedding, but they decide that he’s the biggest threat on the field, which is fine with him since that means the others can work undistracted.

He turns to the demons. Someone else can finish the abomination.

### Wynne POV

Wynne is fine. _The EMP will help tremendously_ , she reminds herself. Her foot slips on dead ice nano, activated by the heated floor, but there are no demons nearby to take the opening. Or abominations. _I’m fine, I haven’t even been touched._ Everything’s happening too fast.

Frost spreads in a cloud over Alistair’s armor, but the casting demon left an opening for Zevran. Wynne spots the dark chip in a gap between frost-coated leathery stingrays close-packed like dragon armor. Wynne’s mind races, even as Zevran’s movements are slowed by the cold the demon causes around it.

Wynne marvels at how much energy it must take to maintain a demon. Granted, each nanobot is lighter than air and most are able to control their precise density, so gravity isn’t a problem. The frost cloud sparkles as the bots coordinate their boosters to move each ray of the demon as a swarm, and Zevran slices through them to give Alistair a clear route to the chip. The man fights like a terror. Alistair takes the opening he’s given him.

“One for you, I believe,” Zevran says.

Wynne shakes herself, casting a heal spell on Zevran.

Morrigan is trying her new fire spell on the last demon, burning snowflakes off its body. Wynne heals Alistair, too, and her chip tells her it has included bots for severe frostbite. Zevran throws himself onto the back of the melting demon. Kit turns from the dissolving body of the abomination as Zev finishes off Morrigan’s experiment with a cackle, and answers her arch look with a grin of his own. Wynne wonders how subtle they think they’re being, whether Kit will resist Zevran’s charms as Wynne had thought.

 _Nano crawling down Nika’s throat._ No. Wynne is fine.

_“I know it seems cruel,” Irving said, “but truly it’s a kindness. They will be safe from possession and free from struggle for the rest of their lives.”_

Wynne shakes her head to banish the thought. There are more pressing matters.

Once Morrigan and Wynne have filled their staves with demonic nano and healed everyone, no one picks up the question of demons taking over non-nanobot pilots, for which Wynne is grateful. She’d much rather let that one lie and not touch it with a very long pole. She thinks she’d rather not return to this room, for fear the question would find her again.

Kit checks on the Tranquil. Of course, they’re unaffected by her gruff demeanor. When she determines they haven’t been hurt, she asks, “Which of these doors leads to the pantry?” Their little group follows directions and opens the door to a small, cool room with dry air and shelves on every wall.

Alistair whistles. “They certainly have stocked up, haven’t they?”

Kinloch Hold’s main pantry is stacked to the high ceiling with food, only a dent made in the supplies at eye-level and lower after weeks of being sealed off by templars. Pieces of a shattered ladder rest to one side.

Thanks to Kit’s foresight, each of them has two strong blankets and a piece of heavy rope. They all spread their blankets on the floor and begin pulling food off shelves and situating it in the center of the blankets.

### Kit POV

Kit strips outer coat, gloves, and most of her body armor to test the strength of the shelves. She’s surprised to see that Zevran has done exactly the same thing. Typical of Kinloch, everything is glaringly white: a death pall throughout the Tower. At least demons don’t whir maliciously here. _If I never see another demon… I will have survived the Circle,_ she thinks.

Satisfied the white-painted metal shelves are sturdy, they climb while the others work from the ground. Both have two shelves between their boots and hands, but Zev has more leeway. Kit tosses Orlesian delicacies onto Morrigan’s pile of grains and pickled vegetables: metal cans of tree fruits and tomatoes, jars of nut butter, bags of dried noodles in fancy shapes, plastic-sealed pastries.

Zevran blurts, “What are you doing?” His tone suggests she’d been caught talking to engine parts.

“What do you mean?” Kit throws another bag of cookies. They were the good kind, with the sprinkles.

“Are we going to need capers?” Zevran nodded at the jar she’d picked up next.

“We might,” Kit defends herself hurriedly. “Rica always wanted capers. They could come in useful.”

“Who’s Rica, a chef?”

“Chef? No. My sister. She cooked for her… boyfriend. Well, baked mostly.” Kit returns the jar.

Zevran goes back to searching and says, “Was she… cooking to impress?”

“Yes. Impressing was the point.” Pride creeps into her voice. “I helped acquire ingredients with my income and connections.”

He fixes her with a steady gaze to say, “If you don’t mind my asking, why would you do that?”

“She’s my sister!” Kit cranks her head to glare.

Zevran shrugs. “Maybe I don’t understand about sisters,” he says and goes back to picking bags of rice and barley off the shelves until Kit sighs. If any surfacer might understand, it’s Zev.

“By Orzammar’s hide-bound rules, when Rica has a son by him, Bhelen Aeducan’ll be family,” she concedes gruffly. “We’d be set. Plus, noble relatives help with–certain difficulties, in my line of work.”

Zev laughs, saying, “You are the reason we can transport these supplies–the problem occurred to no one else!–but you don’t cook, do you?”

“Ah, no, I don’t cook.” Kit tries not to blush.

“Well, it’s a good thing you have me, Joyela,” Zevran crows. He swings like a child to point out sacks to Kit’s right, between them. “Grab the onions. They make any meal delicious, even the smoked fish and barley we’ve survived on so far.”

Still tinting pink under her liberal blue makeup, she jerks the onion sacks down to the pile, careful of her crew below.

“Nuts will be quick eating in Kinloch’s demon-infested halls. The cans of fruit aren’t a bad idea. Fruit makes life more bearable, no? Spices serve well, too, but skip condiments, cookies, and carbonated drinks. They’re more weight than it’s worth, don’t you agree?”

Kit tucks a can of her favorite soda into a handy pouch and then considers neat rows of fist-sized spice bags. “Which of these should we commandeer?”

“Does feeding Circle children count as commandeering?” he inquires in his most innocent voice.

“Oh, just let me commandeer something!”

“Joyela, I cannot stand to keep you from something you want so keenly. But your question. I’m partial to basil, thyme, and marjoram, but Petra longs for bay, and the kids wish for cardamom.” He considers, and then shrugs, gripping the shelves, his lithe shoulders rippling under his tee shirt and twining tattoos. _I never see him without his armor,_ Kit thinks irrelevantly. The tats make fascinating patterns around his arm muscles, but he’s talking. _Focus, duster._ “Spices are light. Toss them all down,” he advises with a jerk of his head.

Kit grins. Easy enough. She finds Alistair a dozen shelves straight down and sweeps the shelf’s spices onto his head, ricocheting off his body armor. A few bags puff satisfyingly.

“Hey!” he calls, then sneezes. Alistair cranes around but smiles when he spies Kit. “What was that?”

“Watch where I’m throwing things!” Kit roars, because he’s grinning. She turns to ask Zevran, “What else?”

Zevran shrugs, smaller this time. “We’ve got onions. Any other roots would help. Ah, you’ve missed a spice.”

Suddenly Zevran is next to Kit, plucking a small bag from behind canned peaches to her left. _When do people get in my space?_ She remembers crowds in Orzammar and Oskias sprawled in snow outside Orzammar’s gate. _That doesn’t count: I threatened him. Zev is–not a mark._ He reaches between her and the shelves. She can feel his warmth, hear his breathing, see the pulse in his neck. She releases her held breath, sucks in another, which smells of tilled fields and sweat under the lingering spices. _Oh. Shit._ Tilled _fucking_ fields.

Instead of tossing the spice bag, he hands it to her, saying serious and low: “You wouldn’t want to miss this one. Basil: very useful for many things.”

“Ah, what?” _Kit: very stupid about many things._

“Sauces, baking, soups, some deserts. Anything really.” His tone is lighter. She breathes a second time, staring at the tats on his arm and _not_ imagining his skin’s taste.

“Of-of course.” She tucks the basil into her thigh pouch. “Sauces.”

“Have I–flustered you, my dear Warden?” Zevran is more amused than surprised as he studies her flush, still too close and not close enough. “I would have thought you unflappable.”

“No! No, definitely not. I am completely, totally unflustered right now,” she says, a hand on his chest. For balance. “Please back up.”

“Of course, Joyela,” Zevran murmurs. He shimmies along the shelves still wearing that maddening grin. “Shall we explore higher?” he calls over his shoulder.

She watches him climb, suddenly aware of the advantages of this angle. “Yes, good idea. There might be more, um, more onions.”

“Hmm,” Zevran hums, shooting her a speculative look that inspires regret over the space between them. But she remembers the Blight, the Circle damage, and the hungry children downstairs. _By all the_ _Paragons’ smallclothes, no. I do not need a crush._

She follows him up.

### Kit POV

They collected too much to carry, so they spend the next twenty minutes discussing what they can leave behind.

Everything is what Kit calls industrial-sized. Alistair clings to a waxed wheel of cheese, Morrigan to a sack of dried apricots, Wynne to a package of real chocolates, Zev to several massive jars of thick tomato sauce, and Kit to a few packages of cookies she’d had once, stolen with Leske from a market stall and shared in secret with her sister, the three of them huddled and hiding, devouring the evidence with glee. Kit remembers them as crumbly with a buttery taste, but the smell of them brings back the exact texture of the stone she’d leaned against, the color of her sister’s hair in that shadow, and Leske’s laugh around the sweet treat as he sprayed crumbs they shook out of their clothes.

With very little discussion, they all agree that these things can’t be left behind.

Additional discussion fills out their haul with more practical choices: a massive bag each of beans, oats, carrots, potatoes, and turnips; all of the nuts, because they won’t need to be cooked; a large bag of pure sugar, which Wynne assures them will aid spellcasting to which Morrigan grudgingly admits; all the fresh green leaves from the hydroponic garden Wynne found in a side room, which Kit is told Surfacers need, though whether physically or mentally is unclear; canned soup for lunches; smoked mutton (but not smoked fish); and tough-skinned winter squashes.

Kit encourages them to test the weight of their packs and tuck canned and dried fruits and veggies into them until they’re too heavy, then remove one. Kit argues that they can leave these behind on the way if they need to, which can only increase the survival of hiding nano pilots. Wynne fusses for a while before she manages to secure heavily-padded chicken and duck eggs into the top of each makeshift sack.

Alistair ends up with the heaviest load and Wynne the lightest, but Kit can’t complain. She’d been wondering how Wynne was going to make it down all those stairs while handling sixty bulky pounds, and Alistair can definitely carry more than his share. It will be enough. 

The barley is left behind entirely. “We still have some,” Wynne says, but there’s not more than a day’s worth.

As they haul the supplies back, resting frequently, they are attacked by only one small demon. Its nug-platter-sized shell is a flat spiral and tentacles spill out of the open end. It _floats_. *make it worse!

They dispatch it quickly, Alistair breaking through the shell at various points and Kit and Zevran slicing into the more vulnerable nano underneath until they find the chip in the center.

When they drag the supplies through the last floor to camp, they’re greeted enthusiastically, especially when Kit shares the first of her massive bags of cookies. After a brief rest and a few cookies of their own, they turn around to fight their way further up the Tower today.

*problems in camp while they’re there? Wynne still trying not to panic?

### Uldred POV

“Ser. I have recruited a spirit, but it might not be what you hoped.”

Uldred turns from the screen, which he has been obsessing over lately. “Explain,” he says to the nano pilot.

“I have recruited a spirit who identifies with Sloth. It has agreed to help but refuses to move. It demands four corporeal subjects, far more than we expected. In return, it will trap anyone who enters its area.”

Uldred considers. “It’s a reasonable deal,” he says. “Those four pilots will arrive soon. They will not be a loss, and a trap will ensure our enemies cannot reach us until we have built our forces sufficiently. If we stop the first wave entirely, so much the better.”

“The trap will take time to establish.”

“Better to start immediately, then,” Uldred says. “Establish it in the Templar Library. That will give it maximum time and ensure our enemies must go through it to get to us. I will send some of the feral demons after the tunnel rat and her crew to slow them down. Maybe there are other options, too. In the mean time, continue searching for spirits willing to make a deal. Offer whatever it takes. We need to win, or _all_ is lost.”

### Alistair POV

There are three demons at once this time, and as a bonus they possess three lightly-rotted bodies scattered in this room when they thought they’d defeated them.

Alistair doesn’t count, but Kit and Zev do. He beats their count, but he’s not totally sure. He’s let the bodies blur together, stopped noticing identifying characteristics. Kit and Zev brag to each other that their target was harder, their count was higher, etc.

For instance, Zevran is saying, “My target had the drop on you. Killing it should count for something a little extra.”

“It did not,” Kit scoffs. “I had it under control, salroka.” _Salroka. What does that mean?_ Alistair wonders. Her tone says ‘asshole’ but her eyes are glittering and her gaze keeps lingering on him.

“So it was here,” Zevran strikes a combat pose, “about to slice you into very pretty ribbons, and you would have?”

Kit changes her stance to what it had been during the battle and twitches her head in the universal signal for ‘come at me.’ Zevran obliges without hesitation, making his mock-attack into a real one. She slides around him and flips him to his back at her feet, none the worse for wear.

“Except I would have set it down harder than that,” she says, as if their conversation had been in words instead of action.

The desire on his face is completely exposed. Alistair looks away, embarrassed to have seen something so… personal. Kit is surprised, nope don’t want to see what that changes to. Morrigan is relieved, but that switches to anger when she catches Alistair looking at her. Maybe she’d been secretly cheering for them? Right, not looking at Morrigan is probably a good policy. Wynne looks concerned but suppresses it quickly.

Kit offers a hand, and Zevran takes it. They end up standing too close and staring at each other.

“Shall we keep moving, then?” Wynne says, for which Alistair is grateful. Kit and Zevran exchange smirks and follow the group.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heaps of love on my beta, Rosehip.  
> Their notes on Tranquility, which I hope to integrate into this chapter someday but have not yet:   
> [My description of Tranquility] would be deeply unhealthy. Sounds like it'd mess with the endocrine system. A lot of emotional hormones do other things, like how Parkinson’s is a dopamine problem. So are there side effects to tranquility that have to be managed another way, or is it like in-world where frankly everybody's wrong about what it does?


	7. Politics & Religion

In the Circle’s Chantry, there’s a white marble stand with tiny steps lined with white candles, each protected by a frosted-glass cup. Zevran steps up to it, glances around the stand, and says, “Wynne, could I trouble you for a light?”

Wynne’s attention was on the fine statue of Andraste, and now she turns saying, “What?” as if this question is incomprehensible.

“I don’t see matches or a lighter here, so I was wondering if you could assist me,” Zevran says, turning to face her fully.

“You… want me to light a Chantry candle for you?” Wynne says, incredulous.

“I apologize. Have I caused offense?” Zevran says because clearly he has. He has flapped the unflappable. Perhaps he should be proud.

Alistair snaps his mouth shut and clears his throat to say, “Ah, yes. You _really_ have. Mages were limited to lighting Chantry candles for the first few decades of their service to the Chantry, and many consider it to be… um… tyrannical to ask a mage to light a candle.”

Zevran laughs, which does nothing to help Wynne’s expression. _Worth it, it’s fucking funny._ “Then I have well and truly stepped in it. My apologies, my good woman. I did not know the history; I simply wanted a bit of fire.”

“You light candles at a Chantry shrine, yet you’re unfamiliar with the history?” she says dubiously. About the lighting candles or not knowing the history, Zevran isn’t sure. Probably both.

“Perhaps it is due to not having frequented a _Circle_ Chantry in the past?” Zevran suggests.

“Why would you even want to”—

“For fuck’s sake,” Kit cuts in. She demonstrates the use of her own lighter, flicking it on and off, and hands it to Zevran. He’s relieved. He really didn’t want to face that line of questioning.

“I thank you, my dear Warden,” Zevran says, which helps them all recover from their leader’s use of swear words in a Chantry.

Kit steps back and glares mildly at everyone else while he lights his candle. He bows his head, kneels, and prays fervently for forgiveness for taking 14 lives since the last time he lit such a candle, lips moving rapidly and rocking slightly. He counts the demons, since they were the first of the Maker’s children. It would seem if anyone cares about their deaths the Maker would. He’d had a dilemma about how to count abominations, but had decided they merge so thoroughly he’s not sure how he would count them separately.

It feels good to start his count over again. Wipe the slate of sins clean, as it were.

When Zevran gets up, Alistair approaches the shrine, hand out for the lighter. Zevran gets Kit’s nod before handing it to Alistair. Alistair lights another candle, touches his forehead on his way down to one knee, and mouths a line or two.

When he is done, he returns the lighter to Kit. Wynne sighs and approaches as well, lighting a candle with her magic and touching her forehead. She does not drop to a knee, does not mouth any lines.

“I am surprised you didn’t say the prayers,” Zevran says, more curious than anything.

“Do you expect they will be heard now?” she asks. She could mean anything, so he lets it go.

### Kit POV

Kit gets her bowl, then sits next to Zevran to pick at the overcooked oatmeal with smoked mutton and a side of pickled pole beans. If it ever had kale or carrots as the apprentices claim, it was added far too early and only lends a darker tint to the mash. Kit wonders what Zevran’s cooking is like, but their dinner was made when they arrived tonight. The apprentices are promising to cook every night before they get back. Kit sighs and shovels another mouthful in.

Wynne is eating elsewhere, and the kids already ate. Only Alistair and Morrigan are left. Kit glances at Morrigan and opens her mouth to ask them to leave. That’s all it takes to prompt Morrigan to drag Alistair away from his empty bowl (as he insists he wants to go back for thirds) on some excuse: armor repair or staff programming or some such. He finally goes along with Morrigan once he collects reassurances that he can eat more after.

Kit and Zevran sit alone at the strange fire-pot, now on a warm simmer.

“I realized something in the Chantry today,” she says and takes a breath. Should she even bring this up again? It’s Zevran’s calm acceptance of their distrust that bothers her the most. “The nervous glances at you and Morrigan. The respectful looks for our Enchanter and Grey Warden.” Kit shakes her head and shoves another spoonful into her mouth. “I grew up with a caste system, and it’s taken me this long to recognize it here, ingrained into people I’ve learned to care about.” _Ingrained into all of them._

Zevran shrugs. “Perhaps. I admit I’m unfamiliar with the dwarven system.”

“I’m… never going to be a part of the Stone,” Kit says, tracing her fingers over the fringe strung with innocent-looking trinkets just below her left shoulder. She wonders if that’s enough, if she can let it rest there.

“Is that so,” Zevran says. Kit’s not sure whether he understands. When she doesn’t continue, he adds, “I apologize, what does that mean?” So she dives in:

“I’m a Duster. Not even the lowest caste: Casteless. I will not be returned to the Stone when I die, because I’m not worthy of It. Before I became a Grey Warden, I couldn’t be a Paragon or even a recognized Ancestor.”

“Hmm.” Zevran pokes at the pot, watching her out of the corner of his eye. “I take it Dwarves venerate their ancestors?”

Kit nods, touching the long bead carved with a nug relief. Zevran looks closer, perhaps identifying the charms, and unsnaps his beautiful belt that is held up by his other clothing more than it holds. It is a dozen links of various metals and alloys, with a leather strap connecting the ends with two snaps.

“I’ve sinned beyond sin, and all I can hope is that my prayers are earnest enough to earn the Maker’s forgiveness.” As he says this, he lets the links slide through his fingers, each link twisted so the chain lies flat against his waist when he’s wearing it.

 _Sinned beyond sin?_ “Your job as a Crow assassin,” Kit says.

“Where I come from, ‘Crow’ is sufficient. We’re all assassins, even the bookkeepers.” Zevran smiles a sad smile and his fingers end at a charm: a tiny horned animal.

“What is that?” she says.

“It represents my mother,” he says, still smiling. “She died when I was born. My first victim, as it were.” He laughs, but it’s too brittle.

“My father left because of me,” says Kit, knowing she shouldn’t blame herself for everything. “If I had been a boy, he’d have stayed, or more to the point he’d have taken me with him. Maybe mother would have gone with him.”

“Mine fell ill and died. Well, the man my mother hoped was my father fell ill and died. She was forced into prostitution to pay her debts before she knew she was pregnant, so I have no way to know for sure.”

“My sister… was lucky enough to attract a single patron,” Kit says, then feels compelled to explain. “If she is even luckier, she will throw a boy and we can move in with him. I mean, they. My mother will join her. Otherwise, Bhelen will leave her and in due time there will be another Duster to primp herself for the nobles.” Kit sighs, staring at her intertwined fingers. “Ancestors know I can’t teach her to fight.”

“So, explain to me if you will, the boys go with the fathers and the girls go with the mothers?”

“Yeah,” Kit pulls out of her funk. “Well, not so much ‘go with’ as ‘take their caste.’ That tends to effect living arrangements, though. We have strict castes in Orzammar, not like up here. You can become anything you have the skill and training for.”

“Not so, my beautiful Warden,” says Zevran, guiding the conversation further from a subject that troubles his joyela. “Even should some poor elf gain the skill, they could never become a noble or merchant.”

“Really? Nobles can foster anyone, and I met an elven merchant in Ostagar.” Kit doesn’t know why she’s poking him, maybe she just likes the sound of his voice.

“An exception that proves the rule. While everyone else was fleeing the area, the elven merchants found the opportunity worth the risk.” Zevran runs his fingers lightly along the chain again, backwards this time from the charm. “If I were to change professions, my past would catch me.” He pulls a metal hairclip from his pouch and tosses it to Kit. It has no jewels, but it’s intricately detailed with a green sheen to the metal. “I intended to melt this down, add a link to my chain. No one in the Crows notices a belt, not even… no one notices.” Zevran studies the clip as Kit flips it over. “I won’t melt this down. I’ve made an enemy of the Crows and the templars. Maker knows the number of days I have. For your sake, I pray I have enough to survive this tower.”

Kit snorts. “If you survive this tower, make them your enemies. Killing you would take more resources than it’s worth.”

“You flatter me,” he says, not getting it.

“No. This is business sense. I could still take you in a fight,” she says, smirking at him, “but we both have gotten better, faster, every day in this nightmare tower. Survive this, and you can make them regret their life choices if they come after you.”

“They will come sideways…”

“The way you approached your marks? I doubt it.” Kit reaches slowly enough Zevran can pull the belt away, but when she touches the links he takes a surprised breath anyway. “No one else keeps mementos because no one else cares.”

Now he pulls it away, gently, puts it back on. Even Kit can see he’s hurt. “I don’t want to believe that,” he says.

“Oh, shit. There is someone… you care about another Crow, don’t you?”

 _Not killing that last mark cost me him,_ Zevran realizes. He’d always known but never faced this reality.

“Zevran, there’s still hope,” Kit says, handing him the green clip. Zevran tucks it into his pouch again, smile firmly in place.

Kit nods. She runs her fingers along her fringe of dangling trinkets. Zevran stares at the fringe, just below her shoulder.

“My ancestors never rejoined the Stone, so I’m told. Their deaths ensured that the dross they were made of becomes the dust on our boots to make the Stone purer. They serve by being discarded. Worthless. Nothing.” She grips the five leather thongs tightly. The fringe twists easily to fit her grip, darkened by engine oil where her fingers touch it.

“I can’t believe they’re nothing; I believe they’re still with me.” She whispers it, speaking the lowest heresy her culture offers but also truth. “Before I knew better, I asked my mother the names of my grandparents, and their parents, and theirs. When she stopped telling me, I made friends with the oldest residents and got stories from them. I found eight ancestors.” Kit fingers through the charms as she recites: “Elhud and Amli, Bakam and Tanisi, Dorka, Gloror and Luda, Regshar. Regshar actually went to the Legion of the Dead when her lover refused to accept her and her daughter, so Luda was raised in another house, not Brosca. Regshar’s funeral bought enough honor that Gloror took the Brosca name before they even had a child. The others looked in Dust Town for their lovers.” Her fingers linger on Gloror’s and Luda’s tokens, a tiny key and a short strip of Luda’s silicone axe handle, braided with the leather.

“You said they’re still with you?” Zevran prompts.

Kit ducks her head. “I pray to them, and things go better when I do. Especially if I ask the right ones for the right things. Regshar for fighting, of course.” She touches the wooden bead the shape of a dwarven skull. “But she’s also good for lost causes. Tanisi when the bike is being difficult.” This is a metal spiral, flat on one side, part of a wrench though not Tanisi’s. “Bakam for patience, especially with family.” Bakam is represented by the long bead with a nug relief. “Elhud and Amli for survival. Food and danger and who to trust. They work best together.” This is a twist of metal, caution-orange on one side, edges filed smooth. She’d found they didn’t need separate charms for them. “Dorka for developing contacts.” The onyx cook pot. Dorka’s habit of keeping her cook pot full no matter how hard times got won her a lot of friends in her lifetime. “Gloror and Luda for guidance in love.” She touches the key-and-silicone again.

“Oh? When have you needed guidance in love?” Zevran teases.

 _Shit, there’s no way I’m going to tell him I’ve prayed to them about him. We just met!_ Instead, Kits says, “I had a crush on Leske when we first started working together, but he’s not very enthusiastic about women.”

Zevran smiles. “That’s a shame. For the record, I am extremely enthusiastic about women.”

Kit smirks at him. “So I’ve noticed,” she says wryly.

“Oh? I thought I was being quite stealthy in my”—

“Vocal enthusiasm for sex with anyone willing? Yes, most clever, duster, you could take a whore unawares.”

“Not quite anyone. However, I can oblige you if you think I should be more obvious.” He calls loudly: “Alistair! I have something to tell you!”

Kit blushes and says too loudly, “Zevran! Don’t yell anything dirty!”

“Good point, amor,” he stage-whispers. Then shouting again: “Come here so I can tell you exactly how scrumptious you are!”

“Zevran!” Kit says, laughing.

“What, that was not indecent. I’m sure these children have stumbled upon much worse in their little enclosed community, no?”

Alistair strides over. Kit isn’t sure if he’s amused or annoyed. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve come to hear me pile compliments upon you? Where shall I start? Your battle prowess? Your ass? No! Your arms. If it were legal, my friend, sculptors would use your arms as the model for iconography of the Maker himself. Sadly, we must settle for Mafarath or some such, which is much less desirable. Nevertheless, such images would be very popular, I assure you.”

As he says this, Kit loses herself in giggles. Stone take her, she hasn’t giggled since she was a child, but it’s just too absurd, Zevran complimenting Alistair like this. Stone please take her now, she can’t stop.

“Will you ever get serious?” Alistair says, but his lip is twitching.

“Not if it means the Warden here stops laughing. Any disgust from your handsomely furrowed brow is a price I’m willing to pay.” Zevran’s tone implies it’s no cost at all.

Alistair shrugs. “Fair enough.” He leaves.

Kit gets herself under control, wiping her tears. Zevran watches her recover.

“That was… I haven’t laughed like that since…”

Zevran smiles and says, “It wasn’t really even that funny, Joyela.”

“I know, I know,” she says as she recovers her more serious mien. “Zevran, I named my ancestors. Will you name your”—

“My victims?”

“I suppose so. I was going to say your people.”

“Perhaps we can settle on ghosts? Very well.” Zevran closes his eyes and touches the link next to the snap-loop with the halla charm hung from it. “Ambassador Heydar. Enchanter Eka. Ambassador Idir. Mirko, lost and found half-brother to the King. Rocco, the Merchant Prince. Irene. Herberto. Andreas. Ernesto and Theresia, now they were quite a pair. Cheated on each other with me, which I did not see coming. I assumed they had discussed it, as it were. A bit of advice, if I may be so bold? Never fail to communicate about the sex you have, Joyela, unless it is desirable for your partners to kill each other. Hildebert, he was some sort of monster hunter, very quiet but _very_ strong. Aloysius, I cannot really claim credit there, he was a healer and succumbed to a plague he was trying to treat.” Zevran lets his fingers slip past the link in the chain furthest from the little halla.

“But you have his token.”

“Yes,” Zevran says. “I couldn’t leave him off. I… tried.”

“These are the ones you’ve lost.”

“Some people require assassinating. Unless you disagree?”

Kit glares at him for the subject change but answers anyway. “I worry about who decides that. If the sparkle-toes in Orzammar could assassinate the Dusters, they would. Call it ‘cleaning out the Carta’ or something.”

“And what would happen to the cleaners?”

“They would be picked off by any remaining Carta.”

“Exactly. What do the Carta do, to ‘earn’ your nobles’ scorn?”

“We make the rules on lyrium smuggling and enforce them.”

Zevran smirks handsomely. “Something I’m sure the Chantry complains to your nobles about.” Then he tilts his head inquiringly. “How do you reconcile criminal behavior with your desire to join the Stone?”

“Lyrium’s the sacred gift freely given to the world by the Stone,” she says. She almost believes it.

“Should that be regulated? You are liberating a sacred substance.” He leavens his voice with a touch of sarcastic shock.

Kit snorts. “Someone should regulate it, we just don’t think it should be the Surfacers. It’s also a deadly substance. Have you ever seen someone on lyrium?”

“According to your handsome friend, all templars save him are on the stuff.”

“Really? Shit. That explains Carroll.” She reviews the checklist of symptoms. Most of them match.

“My order, the Crows, started as a monastery in service to Andraste. I believe Andraste guides me, that I am her cuchillo, her little knife, pointed where she directs. Perhaps that’s what stayed my hand with Sister Hairclip. Maybe Andraste has led me to you.”

“It’s so strange that you Surfacers have only one Paragon,” Kit says, thinking of the ways her ancestors have helped her.

Zevran laughs. “Ah, try telling that to the Dalish. No, I take that back, I suspect they have no wish to think of their Creators as any less than supreme beings.”

“Like your Maker.”

“Even so.”

“Like my Stone.”

“I wonder, does your Stone have will?”

Kit shrugs. She’s not a scholar. Then she realizes she does have evidence for Stone will. “Sometimes miners go crazy following the Stone. It was all over Tapsters when the mining caste realized they’d lost a whole expedition. I’ve never had such easy pick pocketing. That’s how I got my start in the Carta. My point is, maybe the Stone does have a will.”

“Well, there you are. Perhaps the Carta are the instrument of the Stone, its tool to spread lyrium to serve its own will, not the will of the Maker. Although that would put your supreme being and mine in conflict.” Zevran looks pensive, playfully worried.

“That would be terrible,” Kit says, smirking. “Perhaps I should give up lyrium smuggling and focus on killing darkspawn.”

“You are a Grey Warden now, it is true.”

“What does your Chant say about darkspawn?”

“Oh, they are the ultimate evil and should be defeated to prove our worthiness or similar.”

“Huh. Like the Legion of the Dead.”

“You mentioned them before. You have an ancestor who was in this Legion?”

Kit nods. “Any caste can join the Legion of the Dead, hold their funeral, and die fighting darkspawn, taking a swath of the blighters out. It’s one of the few routes to the Stone open to Dusters. I probably… Huh. If I hadn’t joined the Grey Wardens, I would have joined the Legion.”

“Why hadn’t you? Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” Zevran says, smiling.

“I had a mother and sister to take care of. Plus Leske. And… it just occurred to me.”

Zevran laughs. “Lucky for me it’s too late for that.”

Kit’s stomach does that queasy dance of joy again. “Lucky for me, too.” She still isn’t sure how serious he is about her, but she’s starting not to care.

### Alistair POV

The next morning, Alistair is not happy.

 _Why does it have to be undead again?_ Alistair thinks. He slashes at flesh and bone, but there’s something just not _right_ about the brittleness under his sword. At least he can move on once he’s cut off a leg and worry about the chip later.

“Two!” Kit calls, sending a wink to Zevran. Alistair doesn’t even know if Zevran sees it. The elf grunts as he dives his blades into the back of the decaying corpse attacking Kit.

“One,” he pants gamely. “I’ll have you soon, Joyela!”

Alistair focuses on his opponent, not on what Zevran might or might not have. Stab slash stabbity stab-stab down.

“One!” Alistair calls.

Kit laughs as she swings her pickaxe up to dig under an armpit and yanks. Instead of gushing properly, the dark blood oozes out. Alistair shoves that image into a box in a corner to deal with when death is not on the line.

She taunts him: “I thought counting was in bad taste.”

Alistair glances around, finds a good target, and bashes his shield into it. This one is in heavier armor and doesn’t go down, just stumbles back. Probably a departed templar. _Damn._

“I decided you have a point. Killing people isn’t in the best of taste, either, but it must be done. Besides, I want bragging rights.” He grins at the fellow ex-templar, who shambles toward him again.

“I knew you would come around! Another joins the game!” Zevran laughs, lighter than he’d been. “Two!”

Kit also laughs. “You always take the toughest thing on the field. Feel free to brag, count or not.” Then she spins her blades into her opponent, which crumples. “Three!”

Alistair grins and continues to stabbity stab.

### Morrigan POV

Morrigan searches subtly. Once they’ve killed the abominations in the office and Kit is riffling through the First Enchanter’s belongings, Morrigan peers at the desks and FadeScreens, lifting papers to find FadeDrives, picking up the few she finds and casually checking that they haven’t been painted. None are what she’s seeking.

Wynne and Alistair are serving as lookouts outside the room, and the assassin is searching on the other side of the room, crowing with delight when he finds summers. Morrigan opens drawers, pulling out a bottle of lyrium. The top drawer on the left is locked.

“You need that?” Kit says, and Morrigan startles. But no, Kit gestures toward the bottle.

“I’ve enough for today,” Morrigan says.

Kit nods and tucks the bottle in her pouch with a glance toward Wynne out the door. She gets out her lock picks.

“We should get that chest, too,” Morrigan says, tugging once more on the locked drawer.

Zevran has already bent to unlock the chest. He looks up, grinning. Kit snorts and unlocks the drawer as quickly as if she was using a key. She plucks a small, decorated box from it and joins him. Morrigan riffles through the drawer, but no luck.

“It cannot be done,” he declares, stepping back and shaking his head sadly.

Kit raises one eyebrow and says, “Is that so?” She slides the two thin pieces of metal into the lock. She twists one and jiggles the other in a very specific way Morrigan can’t track. It takes longer than the drawer, but the chest swings open. “We need to get you better tools, hunter,” she says, whacking him on the shoulder. He jostles, unbraced for the impact, and snaps his jaw shut.

“How did you…? The pins wouldn’t budge for me.”

“Maybe your tork was too high? Also, this lock has a lever in the back that has to be pushed before anything will move.”

“Are you suggesting, Joyela,” Zevran says teasingly, and Morrigan rolls her eyes preemptively, “that my tool is too short?”

“Paragons forbid,” Kit says dryly, and Zevran throws his head back to laugh.

Morrigan digs through the chest with Kit as her explanation of the finer points of lock picking gets too technical for Morrigan to follow. _There!_ But Kit’s fingers wrap around the black thumb drive first. Morrigan can’t see the design on its surface, but it’s on a leather thong made using her mother’s methods.

Kit strides over to the desk and snags a portable FadeScreen and keyboard. “We’ll need these to look at the drives,” she says. “Maybe we’ll have one less demon to deal with later, too.”

Morrigan’s only consolation is that they’ll never decrypt the contents of that thumb drive.

 


	8. Tricks of the Mind

Kit eyes the frosted-glass door warily. She glances back. Zevran is right behind her, followed by Alistair, mages in back. _Should work tactically._

“I hate having to poke into all of the doors,” Kit says.

“We have no choice, Warden,” Wynne chides her. “We must keep the children safe.”

“It seems like some fights could be avoided entirely.” _Every time we do this, someone could get killed._ She’s not worried about herself.

Her crew gets out their weapons as Kit puts her hand on the doorknob, drawing her off-hand pickaxe.

“Ready?” Kit says and kicks the door open without waiting for a response.

Inside, there is a single, grinning nanobot pilot.

“The fuck? You here to parley or something?” Kit says hopefully.

The nanobot pilot laughs maniacally. _Mage,_ Kit corrects herself. _When they’re crazy, it’s okay to call them mages._ “Parley?” she says, still cackling. “No, I’m here to ensure you get this far. You have this nasty habit of wiping our Canaries of their connections.”

“Those Canaries belong to the Tower,” Wynne huffs. The mage shrugs.

“The Tower belongs to us,” she says.

“If that’s true, you can call off these demons.” Kit spots the glass form behind the mage. It looks like a floating roasted nug with very long front legs until it shifts, and Kit sees five long legs around a central body, two short spurs, and a chip. It darts for the back of the nanobot pilot’s neck.

“Look out!” Kit warns, but too late. It grips the mage, and spreads like liquid over her back and head, lengthening with ambient nano from the air. The mage is laughing, not screaming.

“Spirits are the true advantage of accessing the Fade. Will your apprentices stand against the most powerful demons we’ve recruited? They snuck by you. They’ll possess your precious children any moment now.”

“No!” Wynne shouts. She slips out the door, but two rage demons form and block the way before Kit can think to follow. _Maybe they can get by us._

“Wynne! Help us kill them, we’ll go together!” Kit shouts after her, but Wynne’s gone.

The nanobot pilot’s laughter breaks apart into an electronic scream as the demon overtakes her, swinging like an oversized hood over her face and coating down her throat. The scream fades. Her body becomes an animated flower stalk: The abomination anchors to the floor, and Kit can hear the snap of bones as it bends fluidly to shoot a gout of fire at them.

“All right, you lyrium-faced buffoons, let’s have at it!” Alistair shouts, getting the attention of both rage demons and the abomination. He charges the abomination and smashes into it, which knocks it over, still rooted. Morrigan ices the rage demon on the left, and Kit decides it would be best to finish off each source of damage as quickly as possible. She dives her long knife and pickaxe into that demon, chipping nano away from its core chip. The abomination is casting faster and hotter than demons they’ve fought, even completely in demon shape, breaking and bending the mage to make her fit. Kit wonders if she can even feel pain anymore.

The abomination shoots fire at Alistair when Kit happens to be behind him, but he doesn’t block it entirely. Zevran cuts the offending petal off the malformed head and crushes it underfoot.

“Zev! Rage demon!”

“Right away, Joyela,” he says, but he slices up the stalk of the abomination, perhaps aiming for its spine or looking for its chip.

“Damn it, Zevran,” she says as Alistair takes another hit from behind by the demon no-one has attacked yet. She hacks the chip out of her weakened rage demon as quickly as she can. She removes it just as Morrigan has apparently recovered enough nano and casts ice onto the other flaming demon. “One! Rinse and repeat!” Kit calls as she begins hacking at the second, iced demon. Morrigan sends shorter bursts of cold nano, which slows the steaming demon as Kit hacks at it. This time she manages to dodge out of the way of another gout of flame from the abomination. Her axe chips off a large demon chunk, exposing the chip, and Kit’s dagger shatters it. “Two!” Morrigan quickly casts a nano recall signal before the desire abomination can claim it.

Ice doesn’t work as well on the abomination, so Morrigan casts shapes on the floor that cause Kit to itch and see the FadeChips clear as glass. This one has two, but they are close, one above the other at the top. Kit starts by cutting into the space between them. When the top falls off shockingly easily in a shower of glass and brains, she lets Zevran destroy that chip while she attacks the other. The demon recycled the skull around the pilot’s FadeChip: a fatal mistake. Alistair rams into the abomination, throwing off Kit’s aim but causing its nano to glitter and swirl, disoriented. While it’s still confused, Alistair gouges the surface of the second chip with his sword. Kit tries not to think about the grey material surrounding it. The nano drops suddenly to the floor, then jumps to Morrigan’s staff, which still has the recall on.

“Alistair, Zev, find Wynne. Whether it’s an ambush or she’s protecting the nuglets, whatever. Morrigan, hoover that shit so we can follow fast. I’m your bodyguard.”

“Kinky,” Zevran says on his way out, but he’s gone with Alistair before anyone comments.

Morrigan tops off and says, “That’s all I can carry.” Then her steps trail Kit, who bolts out the door after Zev and Alistair.

### Alistair POV

“What the hell were you thinking?” Alistair says as they pound down to the main floor. “You could have gotten us all killed! Then where would Wynne be?”

“Where indeed,” Zevran says, “but what are you referring to, my dear Alistair?”

“I’m not your ‘dear’ anything,” he snaps, not even sparing Zevran a glance. “Kit gave an order and you ignored it.”

“Yes, how could I possibly delay attacking the rage demon until I’d incapacitated something that was attacking our flawless leader?”

“Another thing! You’re careless. You’re going to get everyone killed.”

“My… carelessness? Is going to get all of you killed?” Zevran sounds surprised, but Alistair can’t trust it. Can’t trust him.

“Just know that I’m watching you. We’ve already got Loghain, I don’t need any more traitors to deal with.”

“I should certainly hope you’re watching.” And now Zevran’s laughing at him. Perfect. “I don’t keep in shape for nothing, you know.”

“Don’t deflect with your”—

“Demons ahead. Let’s have some fun.”

He’s right. Alistair takes in the scene quickly: Nothing directly visible, but the frosted glass wall before them has shadows of color, figures of too many small sizes casting at fainter figures below. When he and Zevran get through the door, he sees spirals of feathers or something stuck to the glass walls, each a little bigger than Zevran’s head and much more conical. Wynne is casting healing spells over the children, one of whom has a strange black ooze crawling over his skin. The children cast various spells at the small demons: miniature blasts of ice and lightning, even a weak glyph. Alistair is relieved at how small the demons are.

They’re also near the ceiling. Alistair manages to get their attention and protect himself with his shield, but he can’t reach them with his sword. His EMP would disrupt the magic as much as the demons. He draws his gun instead, but he wasn’t kidding when he told Kit he wasn’t a good shot. The glass cracks in spiderwebs two feet below the nearest demon, a neat hole in the center, but the glass holds its integrity.

“Stop!” says Wynne. “We’ll have to seal that.”

Zevran appears at his elbow. “I will shoot, if you allow it,” he says. He can’t reach anything with his daggers either.

“Did you miss the part where I don’t trust you?” Alistair says before he realizes his back is exposed to Zevran. The spiral sends a black, oozing blob of nano, which he deflects with his shield, exposing armpits and elbows to the assassin. “Just point the kids where to cast,” Alistair sputters.

Zevran chuckles low and annoying. “As you say. I would hate to disobey your order.” Somehow he says it in a way that makes Alistair blush, but Zevran shouts, “The chip is likely at the base! Try to get between the rows of barbs!” to the apprentices.

“It occurs to me,” Zevran says quite as if they aren’t in the middle of battle, “that if you should move to one side and draw the demons’ attention, it will open up the route to the chip that much more.”

Alistair grunts, but the damned assassin has a point. He continues to shout whatever threats and insults come to mind at the tiny demons and moves to one side. As the demons strain to cast at him, they bend, which spreads the rows of soft-looking barbs out and gives the apprentices a bigger target.

Morrigan appears and casts a hex, which makes the chip glow through the nano. It also magically draws the apprentices’ shots to the chip. Kit throws a powder that flusters the demons briefly, pointing in confused directions, but she can’t reach the demons any more than Alistair or Zevran. _Where is—_ Alistair spots the assassin guiding the weakest apprentices away from the demons, his body between the demons and his tiny charges.

Morrigan casts Cone of Cold on the demons and the battle is over.

### Morrigan POV

As they walk into camp, Morrigan’s gaze keeps getting pulled toward the pouch the black thumb drive disappeared into. Perhaps if the leather thong were trailing out, she could… but no. Kit would catch her, and then Morrigan would owe her explanations.

Better to ask outright, but that would involve explanations as well. Perhaps she could bring it up casually. Not let it be known how much she wants this. What it would mean to her to have this piece of knowledge.

What if they were to crack the cipher somehow? If they know it’s Flemeth’s grimoire, they could use that information against Flemeth and perhaps Morrigan as well. No, they cannot crack it without Morrigan’s key. But even if all they know is that Morrigan wants this book very badly, others could use the book itself as… incentive. Kit has stated time and again that she’s a businesswoman. What would Morrigan risk for the book?

And yet… Morrigan _would_ risk a lot to obtain the knowledge that drive contains. The drive she alone can decode. Hasn’t Kit also repeatedly said she wants everyone to survive? So far, Kit has kept the drive to herself, but eventually she might share it with Wynne and her apprentices on the off chance the information on it could come in useful. It’s what Morrigan would do. If nothing else, this would result in even more people needing explanations when Morrigan tries to obtain it for herself.

If Morrigan is to act, she must act decisively and soon.

### Wynne POV

Wynne pulls Warden Kit aside. There’s no point in taking her to task in front of the others. Kit follows easily enough, but with stubbornness written into every line on her young face. Yet, Wynne cannot imagine what could be more important than supporting a comrade.

“Warden,” Wynne says, trying not to let her disappointment thread her voice. “What took you so long?”

“What took _me_ so long? You’re taking me to task? It was a _trick_ , Wynne, to split us up. Weaken us! How did you not see that? How could you leave us to fight _two_ demons and an abomination?”

Wynne is taken aback. “Demons?”

“Yes, Wynne, demons. Did you think these injuries were from those nug-sized demons? They attacked the second you left, and I’ve been taking your healing as given.”

“While I appreciate”—

“No, Wynne, you don’t get it. Our survival was put at risk because you left without thinking. The survival of the last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden. Loghain has forbidden more from entering the country. The Grey Wardens can rightly say we were acting without orders if Loghain wins. Whatever. My point is, Ferelden will fall and Loghain will not be able to stop it.”

Wynne takes a breath. “Kit,” she says reasonably, “the children were in danger.”

“Don’t ‘Kit’ me.” Kit is not acting like an angry child, just angry. Her words are even and sharp, if spontaneous. “The people we leave behind are in danger _every damn day_. Every minute your _children_ spend in this ancestors-forsaken Tower is another day the Right of Annulment could come crashing through the door. Not to mention if the Blight spreads faster than we hope.” Kit’s words catch over this idea. “Void, Wynne, we knew there was a risk of small abominations getting by us. From what I could see, they were fine before we got here.”

“I… give me a moment,” Wynne says. “You are asking me to choose between the greater good, and the young men and women I have helped raise and train.”

“No, _I’m_ not,” Kit says, slicing a hand to one side with controlled violence. “I’m not fucking forcing anything. If not for Uldred’s mage revolution I’d be gone by now. I’m amplifying Uldred’s question or some shit. It’s about our survival. If you can’t commit, we need you to leave now so we don’t get dependent on you. Because I cannot lose you after I take some risk thinking you can heal us.”

“Either way, the question remains.” Wynne shakes her head, unable to imagine that she could choose the Warden over children.

“I don’t know, how about both?” Kit says. “You can save your students by serving the greater good, as you call it. Believe me, all I want is to go home and make sure the Blight will never touch my family, but I’m doing that here. As fucked-up as it is, I’m _here_ , fighting the Blight, because I love them _there._ ”

Wynne is so shocked she feels like she’s been slapped. She collects herself as fast as she can and says, “I will consider your words, Warden.” She’d overestimated how much this Grey Warden had been manipulated by the strings of Fate.

“You fucking better,” Kit snaps and strides into the camp with more grace than her tone.

### Alistair POV

Alistair tucks his thumb into big part of his glove without thinking. There’s space for him to rub the worry stone nestled against his palm, the pad of his thumb going back and forth, back and forth over the rune carved into it by a Tranquil mage. It soothes him enough. He taps on the box that makes part of Kit’s bedroom wall.

“Come in,” she says, and Alistair pushes the curtain aside. She’s in a loose, brown shirt and shorts that don’t fit, uncurling herself from the corner of her bedroll, and he wonders guiltily if she’s worried about having dreams again tonight. But there’s nothing either of them can do about that.

“Look, Kit, I need to talk to you about Zevran,” Alistair says, tucking his thumb back into the thumb of his glove. “He’s terrible at following orders, and it’s becoming a liability.”

Kit stands and says, “Seriously? When?” That’s a growl in Kit’s voice and wrinkles in her brow. She’s miffed. _Shit. Why?_

“Yes? He didn’t get that rage abomination when you told him.”

“He was at least fighting. Why aren’t we talking about Wynne?” Kit says, and the wrinkles get deeper, and she’s hissing to keep her voice down.

“What, you think she’s slowing us down? This break is good. I’m surprised she hadn’t taught the apprentices that Barrier spell earlier. They can seal the glass door into camp now.”

“She deserted us entirely before we fought an abomination and two demons!”

Alistair blinks. “She was protecting the children,” he protests. “She didn’t even see the”—

“Have you ever noticed that whenever Zevran is doing something that might not be great for the group, he’s protecting _me_?”

Alistair drops his hands, which he’d raised protectively.

“I don’t trust him.” Alistair feels inept. And petty. But mostly inept.

“He’s like me, Alistair,” Kit says, folding her arms and looking away.

Alistair scoffs and says, “Sure, he’s got… daggers and light armor and whatnot, but he’s nothing like you. He’s an assassin. He gets paid to kill people. You’re better than him,” he assures her. “Much, much better.”

“No, Alistair. I was Carta muscle. I was paid to kill people.” Her voice is even and clear, that’s good, right?

“But he’s just so flighty. You’re a Grey Warden.” Alistair has got to make sure she knows what she can be…

“Is that what it’s going to take?” Kit shouts, slashing her hands out and jerking her head back. Not good. Her volume drops again to say, “Are we going to have to pour darkspawn blood down the throats of everyone we work with?”

“Whatever your past, I know your motives, but I don’t know his.” Alistair’s hands are up again, and he drops them to hiss, “What if he’s here to assassinate you?”

“Was he running from the templars?” Even and clear voice, _not_ a good thing, got it. Time to be convincing.

“Yes, and they were chasing with _good cause_. He seduced and nearly _assassinated_ a Chantry Sister, Kit. We can’t put anything past him.”

“Last I checked, sex wasn’t a crime, and I was hired to assassinate a _merchant_.” From her voice, that’s a big deal in Orzammar. “But I didn’t. I faked his death and chucked him onto the Surface instead.”

“You didn’t actually assassinate him, though.”

Kit glares at Alistair. To be fair, it doesn’t take much longer for him to see.

“Okay, good point.” Alistair sighs, trying to figure out what he wanted from this conversation in the first place. “Fiiiiine. I’ll try to trust him. At least I know he’ll have your back, which means a lot.”

“You idiot,” Kit says, but after a moment she gets her neutral face back. “Thanks, Alistair. For the effort and your concern.” She chuffs him on the shoulder, which is always friendly from her.

Alistair smiles weakly and turns to go.

“Have a good night, Kit.”

“You too, Hero.”

### Morrigan POV

The next morning, Morrigan catches Kit next to the barrier while she’s checking her equipment before they travel the halls of this cursed place. She’d already sharpened everything and repaired her armor last night, but this last check is a routine Kit’s not willing to skip.

“What’s up?” Kit says, looking up at Morrigan expectantly and patting her last pouch.

“I’m looking for something I believe will be useful in days to come,” Morrigan admits. “It is somewhere in this Circle, likely kept under lock and key.”

“Useful things are good,” Kit says wryly. “What are we looking for?”

Morrigan tips her head forward briefly. “It is a black thumb drive with a tree and its roots embossed on one side in gold. Last I saw it, it was on a leather strap.”

“Last you saw it?”

Morrigan says, “It was Mother’s grimoire.”

“Grimoire? Like book of nano designs? Didn’t she teach you her magic?”

Morrigan laughs. “Not all of it, and I would hate to squander this opportunity to learn something she had forbidden me!”

“It’s at the Circle. Some templars escaped her, then?”

“No,” Morrigan says. “Mother gave her grimoire to a mage, long ago, for safekeeping, shortly before she taught me her cipher.” Morrigan smirks. “I seriously doubt these fools have broken it in so short a time.”

Kit nods. “Knowledge is power, right? Let’s find it. Hey, do you need anything from the library, too?”

Morrigan flicks a hand to cover her surprise and says, “I don’t expect to give a dissertation on the trajectory of fire nano any time soon.”

“So no,” Kit says wryly. The corners of Morrigan’s mouth tug up. “Where would it be?” she asks, glancing toward the barrier leading into the rest of the Tower.

“My best guess would be one of the offices.” Morrigan says, willing Kit to remember, hoping she’s not playing the fool on purpose.

“Wait, Morrigan! I found something like that yesterday afternoon, before that nasty fight with the glass demon-abomination.”

Kit searches through her pouches and pulls the drive out by the leather thong. Morrigan can’t stop herself smiling as she takes it.

“Yes, that looks like it.” Morrigan studies the tree embossed on the side. It’s definitely the same one. She wraps her fingers tighter around the drive, excitement and hope filling her. _What wonders will I learn when I decrypt it?_

“Hold on, you’ll need a FadeScreen and keyboard.” Kit ducks into the maze of stacked supplies and comes back with one of each, taken off the network before the party brought them into camp. Zevran slides from between the boxes, checking his gloves as he walks.

Morrigan catches her eye as Kit hands them over. “Thank you, Warden. I mean it.”

“Call me Kit,” she says in her understated tone. Morrigan gets the impression that anyone else would be grinning. “All my people do.” She spins and taps Zevran on the shoulder. “Except this one. He’s invented an Antivan name for me, and I’m afraid to ask.”

“Only good things, Joyela,” he says, yawning. “I promise.”

Kit snorts. “So you say, hunter.” Wynne and Alistair appear from between the boxes a moment later, and she says, “Come on, let’s get going.”

Morrigan trails after them, tucking the tools in her largest pouch and smiling.

 


	9. Back-to-Back and Front-to-Front

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle Couple time!

“Incoming!” Kit shouts, counting the enemies fast. _Five templars…_

Alistair ducks behind his shield. The small blast doesn’t affect him, but it knocks Wynne off her feet. She doesn’t get up. Everyone else is out of range.

“Healer down!” Kit shouts, trying to tell if Wynne is completely out while she tries to stab one of these assholes.

“What the hell! We’re on your side,” Alistair shouts.

“I don’t think they can hear you, my friend!” Zevran calls. He points at a swirling mass of trilobyte-shaped fire. “Demon!”

“Templars don’t have chips!” Alistair objects. “They can’t be possessed.”

“’Tis blood nano enthralling the fools,” Morrigan calls, casting something as a templar approaches her. Before she finishes, a templar grips her staff and the air around her stops glittering. “Void with you! They cut my nano!” She dodges a backhand from the human-shaped tin can, slides in the inert dust, and lands a blow with her staff. It is, after all, still a really big stick.

Alistair sputters: “How? What? That was fast!”

“Shit, Alistair, you need to up your game!” Kit calls. _Seriously, he completed his training, right?_

“I’ve been trying to tell him,” Zev pants, stabbing Kit’s templar deep in a chink in its armor below the scapulas.

“We could _use_ that next time we meet hostile nanobot pilots!” She grins as her templar turns to face her, binding his sword in the hook of her pickaxe and poking at his armpit with her dagger. The armor drips crimson, and the templar panics, yanking his bound sword. The pickaxe is hooked sharply enough she can keep it under control while she waits for another gap to open up and Zevran stabs him from behind.

“Take them out! I’m next to useless here!” Morrigan calls as she taps the templar’s sword aside and Zevran finishes this one off.

“One!” he calls.

“Easy for you to say, Morrigan, there’s five of them!” But Alistair charges the one attacking her.

Kit encourages, “Everybody get at least two!” _Where’s the fifth one? Shit – it’s after Wynne._ Wynne is stuggling to stand from that first blast. She collapses from the effort of trying. Kit dodges Zev’s falling templar and runs as quietly as she can to Wynne’s opponent. “Yeargh!” Kit launches onto the templar’s back with her blades, but only the pickaxe goes in. The dagger glances off the slick armor, and she falls to her feet, ripping a gouge through the templar.

They’re down a healer; Kit will be killed if he faces her directly. Kit bolts. She is chased by a spray of fire from the demon, which ends when she ducks behind Alistair’s templar.

Alistair knocks down his templar as Morrigan backs out of tin-can range, but he gets flanked by two more templars. As he grimly calls “One for me!” they knock him senseless. He’s covered in blood. _Shit. Regshar, let me kill enough of them before I go._

Alistair was wrong. The templar he’d knocked over gets up again, but Kit slips from the shadows to take him out, mindful of the metal plates.

“Make that one for me,” she says. She has to bolt from the other two before she can get into good position against either. Zev rolls away from the one he is fighting to backstab one pursuing her.

“Shit, shit, Alistair!” Morrigan calls angrily as the other turns to her, striding to close the distance she’s bought herself. He does something that causes her to grab her head and collapse limply.

“Well, Zev, it’s you and me. If you were planning to turn your coat, now would be the time.”

Zevran laughs. “After what we’ve been through, you have so little faith in me?”

“Nope,” Kit says, “just giving you shit. Three against two. Terrible odds. For them.”

“Four against two. You neglected the demon.”

“So I did. Hey, could you get that first?”

Zev spins to face the demon, laughing, Kit at his back focusing on the templars, but she can hear the shrimp-jointed demon skitter across the floor. Kit tosses a complaint at it over her shoulder before the templars close.

“Alistair’s a pancake, and you’ve got templars. Hardly fair against our nanobot pilots. Against us, though, they’re tin cans to open.”

“Very stabby tin cans,” Zev agrees. One on the left lunges for Zev, and Kit deflects but does not bind his weapon, which cuts a bit of Zev’s blonde hair. There’s a dent where Morrigan’s staff tapped him, so Kit dubs this one Ser Taps.

Zev dodges between demon and Taps, and he slides his blades between the trilobyte armor plates. The demon shrieks as though its never been stabbed before. _How did it thrall five templars without getting stabbed?_

One of the spike-legs of the trilobyte whips Zev’s arm, leaving a bloody welt.

“Zev, watch for its nanites!” Kit shouts, dodging the templars.

Having sliped behind it, Zev uses the demon’s spines as a ladder and stabs into its back. He jumps off as a templar leaves Kit and closes with Zev. Kit sees the bleeding chunk she’d removed with her pick earlier and dubs this one Ser Chunky. His sword swings through space where Zev was. Zev grabs the gun off his belt, shooting at the demon but instead making a bullet hole in the marble floor.

Kit slides a blade across the unprotected inner elbow of Taps’ shield arm. That drops the shield enough she can get between it and the sword, close enough that he can’t turn his blade on her.

“Hello, lover,” Kit says at the intimacy of her position, then stabs him in the gut, slides up a few inches into a plate of armor, then twists her blade to cut sideways. His guts pour warm over her hand and legs. As he collapses, she slips in his blood on the polished stone.

“Shit!” Kit falls as a sword flies over her head. The third templar snuck behind her while she was fighting Taps. Ser Sneak.

“Demons are hell to kill,” Zevran complains as it scuttles on tendril legs toward him, Chunky on its far side trying to flank Zevran. The demon lifts into a cobra position and sprays fire nano. Zevran does his best to duck under it, but his new hood and back get singed. In spite of his injuries, he slides over the smooth white stone on his slick-padded knees and thrusts his daggers into the chin of the trilobyte. Instead of shrieking again, the demon collects itself and flops onto him. “Shit!” Zevran rolls out of the way but earns a series of parallel welts from its whipping tendrils. Then Chunky is in his face.

Kit stabs at the ankles of Sneak but can’t get through the metal-plated boots, and she only has time for two slices before he’s able to point his sword at her. She crawls fast past him, but he faces her again. He gets a proper grip on his sword and damn but Kit is tired.

She closes with him fast, hooking his sword with her pick and shoving a dagger point in his armor. It’s shallow, but Sneak jerks, creating an opening. Kit frees her dagger and jams it into his neck. This time she manages to get free of the spreading puddle of blood before using her ice-walking practice.

The demon is between her and Zevran, facing him. He is chuckling with gleeful bloodlust, but Ser Chunky is circling to the left to attack him from that side. The demon whirs like a staff, building more nano and growing. _Damn. Didn’t know they could do that._

The path is clear except for Alistair sprawled out. Kit leaps his body, shaking the blood from her blades, which she buries deep in a pair of chinks between the demon plates. Then she twirls them like joysticks, using the plates as fulcrums and doing massive damage underneath. The axe slips out entirely, but the demon shrieks again, legs whipping. Kit chips at it again and continues to dig, inching her blades through nano plate. The templar turns toward her, agog as its master shrieks and dies. Zevran gets a murderous look as Chunky points her sword at Kit.

“Don’t! She might come to when the demon’s dead!” Kit yanks on her blades, doing more damage. Dead nano pours from the gaps between nano plates as the demon looses coordination.

The templar blinks, and Kit hopes to add one to her crew. Then she crouches and charges Kit, sword and shield in perfect position, blade aimed for the heart. Kit pulls at the handles of her daggers, stupidly, unable to dislodge them and too surprised to let go.

Zevran shouts, but the templar doesn’t change course. He leaps on her back to plunge one blade in her neck, the other skittering off her armor.

“Damn it!” Kit shouts as the templar and demon collapse at the same time.

### Zevran POV

“I find myself unable to apolgize sincerely, Joyela. She could have killed you.” Zev says as he holds Wynne’s head for the elfroot potion.

“I will talk to you later,” is all Kit says. Her face has a new expression: tightly controlled for once, far too bland but not detatched. He cannot read it.

Once she recovers, Wynne uses her staff to lavish healing nanites on Morrigan and Alistair. Kit helps Wynne collect nano for her staff and Morrigan’s. Morrigan herself is arguing with Alistair, which is nothing new but this one catches Zev’s attention.

“If you disable nano, it might be of use to me.”

“How would that even work?” Alistair scoffs.

“I have a broadcast function that draws them to me, if they aren’t being controlled by anything else.”

“When did I start actually working with nanobot pilots?” he says incredulously.

“The same time I started working with a moron. I shall explain myself simply. I’ll not turn to blood nano or _invite_ a spirit into my being. If I become a abomination, you have my blessing to kill me. I’m simply suggesting we become more effective.”

“I _hate_ when you make sense. I’m pretty sure you’re leading me to sin.”

Morrigan blinks to disguise her wide-shocked eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Zev would snicker if Kit would look at him. As it is, he’s too miserable.

On their way back down to the camp, Alistair pulls him aside. “What happened when I was out? She won’t even talk to you.”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your concern,” Zevran says. _Could I have saved that templar? Not without sacrificing Kit._

Alistair raises his hands. “I skipped a part, didn’t I? Sorry. I thought I was guarding her against you, but she’s right, you’re guarding her. Maker. We need to work together, and if she’s not talking to you that changes things.”

When had it become this devastating, the idea that Kit might hate him? But he cannot apologize for killing that templar, not when it nearly killed her.

They arrive at camp, clean up with buckets of water and rags, usually Zevran’s favorite part of the day. They eat beans and rice with carrots, basil, and one of the jars of tomatoes, which the older kids prepared while they were out.

“Zev,” Kit snaps, finishing her food shortly after he does. “Private conference. Now.”

Zev hangs his head. Well, she spoke to him. He follows to a side closet. This is odd, but it is offers privacy. At least she won’t chew him out in front of everyone. _It is actually pretty dark in here. Well, there is light from the—_ Kit slams the door closed behind him. It is totally dark, but Zev feels her hands scrabbling at his collar, pulling him down…

And kissing him.

It’s hard, and desperate, all tongue and unpleasantly clacking teeth and surprise and glory. She smells like fall. After his initial surprise, he kisses back equally hard and wraps his arms around to pull her closer. She brakes off.

“Thank you.” She is panting, Maker help him.

“What?” Zevran has lost his silver tongue. Perhaps she stole it. He leans closer. Perhaps he will have to steal it back. “I thought you were mad I killed the last templar.” He is short of breath, too.

“No,” Kit says, pulling him down to touch their foreheads together. She smells like an apple orchard at harvest time. “No, she would have killed me. I was stupid. I should have gotten out of the way.”

Zev shakes his head, turning hers too with his forehead. “That demon would have healed. It’s what it wanted, you dead or the daggers out. You hit the chip just in time.” He tilts his head to taste her sweet kiss, savoring her moans against his mouth. “I should be thanking you. I bit off more than I could chew with that pair. Because of you, I could make my shot, no?”

“Zevran.” Kit leans back against the wall, pulling him tight and rolling her hips forward. “I know of a great way we could thank each other.”

Zev chuckles into her ear and presses his thigh between hers. “We’re wearing too much clothing.”

“Fuckin’ right we are,” Kit says. She pulls his shirt over his torso. He lets go of her so she can pull it over his head, then disintangles his arms while she distracts him with hands running over his chest and stomach. He pulls at her shirt, but she keeps her hands on him. He slides a hand up to squeeze her ample breast, still covered by her bra, and she arches away from the wall. He slides his other hand behind to unfasten her bra so he can slip under it to tease the nipple. He’s rewarded with her sharp intake of breath. She must have lost track of her hands on his chest: he gets the shirt over her head. He can’t see, but he can feel her skin. A scar. Smooth skin. Rounded breast. Peaked nipple. Pressing her aginst the wall again, he bends low to tease the nipple with tongue and teeth.

“Zevran.” The sound of his name on her breath is intoxicating. His head spins as her fingers twine in his hair. She pulls him closer, pressing his mouth to her breast. He suckles it eagerly, enjoying the arch of her against him. All that muscle, the power of her. He remembers she was a biker and imagines, not for the first time, those powerful thighs wrapped around him, tightening. He grunts and scrabbles for her pants. Her hands claw down his back to his belt. She pulls him up, and he realizes he’d sunk to his knees to reach her. He stays crouched as they scrabble at each others’ belts, but it’s not working.

“I’ll get mine, you get yours,” he mutters in her hair.

“Agreed,” she pants.

They break apart. Zev concentrates on removing his pants. He unfastens them, shoves them to his ankles, removes one foot, but they turn inside out and follow his raised foot. In the dark, he lifts it further trying to pull free. He doesn’t realize he’s falling until he hits the first broom. “Shit!” Zev crashes into a series of brooms, then a wall. _Real graceful, Zev._ The brooms run into mops and from the sound of it at least one empty bucket. A pair of pants land on his head.

“At least I know where you are,” Kit says. _She’s naked._ He can’t see her, but the knowledge is enough to drive him crazy with anticipation. He’d forgotten his boots, but clearly she has more forsight than he. She finds him and kneels across his hips.

“And here I was hoping for you against the wall,” Zev jokes, but he is recovering fast and fuck is he ready. Her hand runs up his thigh to caress his balls and ghost over his cock. He hisses and presses his back against the broom-handled wall. “Oh, fuck, yes. Have you been thinking about this the whole time we were in camp?”

“Yes. I want you in every way.”

“I don’t know if I can do _every_ way in a clothset.” Zev pulls her close enough that he can lick her nipples again. She settles across his lap, pressed against his length, moist and hot. He groans low as she slides up.

There is a loud knock on the clothset door. “Is everything okay in there?” comes Alistair’s voice.

Kit snaps her head to shout at the door: “Fuck off, Alistair, I’ve got it covered.”

“I love when you get violent,” Zevran purrs throatily but loud enough for Alistair to hear.

“Ri-Right. I’ll just be – over here, then.”

Kit turns to scratch down Zevran’s front. He hisses and groans, squirming against her heat. “Have I told you how much I want this?” The stone tile is contrasting cold against his ass.

“Yes,” she says, lifting away from him. “Can you hold back?” She hovers, pressing his tip against her entrance.

“With you? I’ll do my best but promise nothing.”

She pauses to consider. “Fuck I want it too much; let’s give it a shot.”

Hot slick pressure pleasure shooting through his body. She is here. _She_ is here, deadly and _his_ for this moment and he’s not cumming yet. He wraps his hands over her ample ass. She lifts it and moans as she lowers herself over him again. He pulls her onto his hips, so her clit grinds against him as she rides him.

“Yes, oh, Zevran. Unh. Oh, sssshit.” He can hardly move from here, but he can run his hands over her. She tightens when his hands return her ass, so he kneads it, finding the perfect place where her ass met her legs for the best moans the most enthusiastic movement.

Then she clenches all around him, arched back, and squeezes out a bitten-back “Aaaah!” He wants to hear her sweet sounds, but remembers others outside the clothset. Panting, groaning, he supports her back as she arches. Her nails claw down his chest again, harder this time, and he follows her over the edge, growling low and driving her shaking onto him again. As he cums, he curls his hips up into her, the flow of his orgasm taking over his body. He still holds her hips but lets his body curl like a bow. It has been too long since he’d felt this sweet release. He savors it, feels her body moving against his, both surrendering to the pleasure.

He holds her as she catches her breath. He’s slumped against the clothset wall, broomhandles unpleasantly digging into his back. Unpleasant for the first time since Kit’d ghosted over him with a light lover’s touch.

“Did-Did that just happen?”

“No,” Kit laughs. “We did that. It didn’t just happen on its own.”

“I am so fucking lucky. You are marvelous.”

“So you might be willing to try again sometime?” There’s a smile in Kit’s voice.

“Hmm, do you thing you’ll have something else to thank me for?” Zevran can’t suppress his own smile in the dark.

### Zevran POV

“Ready?” Kit says in the dark.

“Open the door and I’ll check.” Zevran replies.

Maker, she looks glorious. Kit is clothed again, but she definitely has that ‘just-fucked’ look about her. Her cheeks have a healthy glow, her hair is horribly mussed. Zevran unsmudges her blue lipstick while she wipes it off his face… and neck. He flattens the worst lock of her hair, but he doesn’t bother with more.

“Paragons, you look bruised from my lipstick. Where’s your FadeCell?” she mutters as she combs the fraying braid out of his hair. When she tugs him down to re-do the braid, he catches her hand.

“It will do,” he says. “You can re-braid it at the fire, if you wish. And your hair is perfect, but I will give you my cell if you prefer.”

She smiles. “I’m not used to sex with fellow fighters. I always looked outside the Carta in Orzammar.”

“Mmm,” he says pleasantly and kisses the knuckles of her captured hand. “Do you like it?”

“Fade, yes,” she says. “With you, I like it.”

He smiles and releases her hand. “After you, milady.” He drops into a ridiculous bow, gesturing to the nearest gap in the stacks of supplies. He glances up to waggle eyebrows at her.

She snorts, hands on hips. “I’m no lady.”

“No?” Zevran says, “And here I was hoping to watch those swaying hips on our way.”

“You get plenty of chances to leer at me in the Tower,” she chides. “But I’m in a good mood. If it makes you happy, I’ll lead the way.”

“I’m not sure ‘happy’ is the perfect word for how I feel when I watch you move,” he says as he follows her.

“What, already?” she says, picking her way through the boxes.

“Joyela,” Zevran says chuckling, “you have left me well satisfied. But there’s no harm in saving for next time, yes?” He savors the sight of her motion and the memory of how that body felt against his. Well worth it, even if she regrets her offer.

She tosses a glance over her shoulder at him. “None,” she says, grinning again. So that wasn’t just post-coital generosity. He chuckles.

“Oh, good, a joke!” Alistair says as Kit settles by the cookpot. Alistair’s voice is light, but his glance seems worried as it hops between Kit and Zevran, who drops on the floor next to her. As Zevran settles, Alistair’s expression calms to concern. “Care to share with the rest of the class?”

“No,” Kit says, sneering at him and running her fingers through Zevran’s hair before twisting it into a fresh braid.

Alistair’s smile twitches at them, then fades.

 


	10. Rogue Fade

Kit rounds a corner to the most disgusting and yet fascinating venue she’s seen yet. There are masses of writhing flesh, animated by nanintes, piled on the white-marble floor in this central, multi-sided room. She hopes none are alive, but _that_ might be an eye lidded in nano. Kit’s own eyes water. The glittering masses are positioned evenly around the center of the room, where snails cover a man, who steps out of more writhing formations.

“Ah, good, you’re here. I was worried you wouldn’t make it,” the man drawls as Kit notices some of the snails are sinking into his skin. He has a large shining black snail over each eye. As he speaks, his lips and tongue shimmer with nano hidden under tiny snails.

“Demon! Kill it!” Drawing, Kit lets her momentum carry her closer to the snail-covered demon. She hears weapons drawn behind her.

“That would be inconvenient. Wouldn’t you rather just rest?” the abomination says.

A cloud of nanites shimmers in front of her and hiss a cool white mist into her face. She gasps and backs up a step, wavering on her feet. Suddenly the idea of a nap sounds delicious.

Close behind her, Zev makes a sudden grunt. Kit glances at him, then stares. He is wearing a weird helmet under his new hood that covers his eyes and ears. He falls forward, and Kit lunges to catch him, slowing his fall but almost falling, herself. He’s a rag doll.

“What have you done to him?” He’s still breathing.

“How can he be in the Fade?” Morrigan cries. Then a white cloud appears in front of her, and her ever-present alertness droops. Her head jerks forward, and silvery nano creeps over her face from her hairline. She crumples to the floor, still sitting. Wynne is already down behind her, metal helmet covering her face as well. Kit can’t do anything: it’s happening too fast. _One hope._

As Kit turns to check on Alistair, she feels something smack the back of her head.

Starting at the base of her skull, Kit feels a crawling sensation over her scalp, under her bike helmet. It progresses quickly, and when it gets to her ears and eyes both are covered. The strap under her riding helmet tightens painfully, and she fumbles with the strap, unbuckling it.

“Alistair… get out…” she tries to shout. It comes out a mumble.

The pressure is gone with the helmet, but the crawling sensation intensifies until it feels like Kit’s head is covered in fine lightening. Her nose tickles. The sensation crawls down her spine as she loses control of her body. Shoulders & arms, torso, legs lose all sensation as the tickling feeling rushes down her back.

And then she wakes up.

### Kit POV

##           Temptations of the Fade

Kit opens her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling but a familiar voice.

“Kit! You’re finally awake!”

“Rica? Where am I?”

Rica laughs. “You’re home, of course. Brosca estate? Orzammar?”

“Brosca … estate?” but as the dream fades, her memory provides more information. She was caught in the Proving, but she’d impressed the judges and was given another chance to legally compete in the next Proving, with nobility as her prize. She won. “Of course. Sorry. Weird dream. It was so … real.”

“You and your dreams. I will never understand it.”

Since when does Kit dream? Since the darkspawn? No, that was part of the dream.

Leske walks in. “Is my sister-in-law dreaming again?”

Kit blinks, but again her memory returns. Once Rica was part of a noble family in her own right, she’d been able to have a daughter with Leske. _No, that can’t be right. He’s family, but…_

But he’s here, and after the dream it’s good to have the chance to razz him again.

“That’s right, noble-hunter,” Kit teases. “Want to make something of it?”

Leske holds up his hands, shaking his head. “No, of course not.” Kit missed his smile. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah. What are you up to today?”

Leske looks at her, dumbfounded. Kit cannot remember what a noble hunter does with his time once the noble is caught. Leske shrugs. “Same ol’ same ol’.” Kit smiles. Why can’t she remember?

Kit fiegns shock. “Why Leske! You’re back to intimidating marks?” _It must have changed since then…_

“I guess I am,” he says, grinning.

_That can’t be right._

Rica is instantly by Kit’s side. “What do you mean?” Had she said that out loud? “There’s nothing wrong, sister. Everything is exactly as it should be.”

Kit feels soothing calm melt into her emotions. Everything feels so right.

 _No._ “Dwarves don’t dream. _I_ don’t dream.”

“Of course you do. Ever since you became a Grey Warden, you’ve been having dreams remember?” Leske never smiles this much: his real smile. Rica must be good for him. _How do they make that work?_ Why doesn’t she know? Leske would have told her.

Then Kit does remember: darkspawn, the Archdemon.

“When did I become a Grey Warden?” Her sister and best friend smile at exactly the same time. _Exactly the same way._

“After your first Proving, remember? Duncan was impressed with your performance and convinced them to allow you into a second Proving. He gave you the Joining. You became a noble from that second one – “

“That’s not how Provings work. There are no prizes. You compete for the honor of the ancestors.” Kit says. Then, realizing, “You shouldn’t know about the Joining.”

“Now who’s going to tell me all about how Provings work,” says Leske, rolling his eyes.

“You thought there _might_ be a prize, but you were wrong. My prize was exile. Nobles at least get honor.”

“You are a noble. You can keep your honor,” Leske says. There’s more undercutting his words: this is everything she’d ever wanted, the work done. She can keep them, keep this wealth, keep her status.

“I wasn’t during my first Proving. How was I dreaming? It seemed so real.” _It’s important to remember the dream._ The sky. Buildings of white stone. Buildings of metal and shattered glass. People. People like family. “Something about a fight with the darkspawn. And nano pilots, mages, of all things. We had to… rescue or free or kill the nano pilots. What _was_ it?” Kit sits on the edge of the bed—hers?—and  wracks her brain, trying to remember the dream. Unlike her darkspawn dreams in Kinloch— _Kinloch! that’s where the mages are!_ —these dreams become more solid the more she thinks about them.

Duncan… Cailen, the king… Alistair, like a puppy. Morrigan and Wynne casting nano. Zevran suddenly leaps into her mind, so clear. Stabbing both of his daggers into the back of a tower of flame. Grinning, laughing like death is his only reason to live. Dying—no! not dying but collapsing covered in a shimmering metal helmet, covering his head and most of his face but letting his mouth hang open.

_Zevran will die if I stay here._

“Who is Zevran?”

Kit looks up, opening her eyes—are they really her eyes?—to see Rica and Leske standing far too close. She did _not_ say his name out loud, but they know it. She is holding her blood-stained dagger and pickaxe, her filthy armor soiling the bed with blood and dead nano. She is wearing what she’d been when she’d fallen in her ‘dream.’

Then it flicks away when she blinks. She’s in rich silk, her sister and best friend are safe. They have enough power to stay safe for years, decades.

She has the choice she’d bemoaned not having, how many times in Kinloch? She can have everything she’s ever wanted, but it will not be real. She can convince herself it’s real, she’s no doubt. Or she can fight for painful reality and protect what she loves.

“You never got a chance to meet him.” Kit will not cry. These are not Rica and Leske. Her bloody armor flickers back into reality. “You’d have liked him. He’s such a punk. Like Leske.”

“Kit…” Leske’s voice has a warning tone it had never taken when he was real.

“You got that mixed up. That’s my sister’s line. Never worked coming from her, either.” Kit stabs Leske in the gut, drags the blade sideways. Vivid, glistening red guts pour out of him, more real than anything else here. He stares down, disbelieving.

Rica shrieks, a sound more like the screams of demons than anything she’s ever made. Her claws grow inches without the clack of nano. _What is this place?_ Rica scratches at Kit’s face. Kit waves her dagger, and Rica’s wrists sever. She sprays blood on Kit and Leske. _Fake blood. Fake Rica._ Kit stabs the image of her sister in the gut, pulling up this time, angling for her sister’s demon heart.

The look of pain in her eyes reminds Kit of every toy she’d stolen, every small betrayal she’d inflicted on her sister as they grew up. Her walls crumbles inside, ice walls melting in a rush of flooding sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, catching her sister and easing her body down by Leske’s feet.

“Why?” Leske rasps as he stumbles next to her, holding his guts in his hands. “Why couldn’t you just be happy?”

Kit can’t turn away. She watches the light go out of her sister’s eyes. _No, Rica’s image, this isn’t real._ Then she turns to Leske’s image. He doesn’t have the right expression. He looks slightly amused. Kit has never betrayed Leske. _Well, not and stuck around to see his face._

“Leske would never have asked me that. He knows I hate lying to myself.” She steps behind the false Leske and grips his head firmly by the chin and crown. This way she doesn’t have to look at his weird smile. She twists, cracking his neck. He slumps.

 _They’re not real. They weren’t real._ She chants it to herself as she backs into a chest of fucking drawers. There’s a safe on it. _They’re alive. They’re in Orzammar, they’re fine. They will not be overrun by darkspawn. You will save them from the Blight after you get out of this mess._ She closes her eyes and breathes until she has a plan.

She tosses sheets over their forms without thinking too much, and then Kit focuses on exactly what she needs before she searches. Elfroot potions. As a noble, she would have better weapons: a gun and the hatchet she saw in the market the other day. Kit opens the safe with her sister’s birthdate and finds everything she imagined, but it flickers as she doubts. Kit concentrates, imagining them full-color and real. The rest of the world wavers and fades several times. Five potions, the best hatchet in the market, and gun and ammo trade realness with the rest of the room several times before it evens out.

Kit doesn’t think too hard that she’d created something in the Fade. She doesn’t think about what was behind the faces of Leske and Rica. Instead, she takes the objects and leaves the room.

Something screams a little. Like metal being torn apart, and also like the rush of air on a bike. Then it’s quiet, whispers and echoes on the edge of understanding. Kit can’t even tell if the words are Trade, isn’t sure the whispers are words. Here the Fade smells of metal and blood. And fruit and campfire and house fire. Rotted meat. Cooked meat. It’s appetizing and vomit-inducing at the same time.

Kit stands in a stringless mobile of little worlds: car-sized rocks that breathe in sync with the shining person on them. There is a ring of granite connecting the inner worlds. Smaller worlds surround this ring, reaching tendrils of granite toward each other, but not connecting: the start of a second circle. Kit is shining too, standing on a world in the outer ring. Wynne, Alistair, Morrigan, and Zevran have their own glittering worlds in this ring. Everyone but Kit is half-real, talking to people who aren’t there, one of the inner people angry, another curled up small. Their words blend with the sibliant murmur of the Fade. She can reach two glittering people in the inner ring from where she is. Even looking closer, they are people she doesn’t recognize.

Wynne is to her left in the outer circle, Zevran to her right. “Zevran!” she shouts, but the Fade swallows the sound. She steps onto the tendril of granite reaching for his world, but it wobbles dangerously, as if it really is being held up by an invisible string. Kit reaches, but Zevran slides away, or the ring gets bigger, or she shrinks. She can’t tell.

She does _not_ freak out.

Frustrated, she reaches to the stranger closest to Zevran. Her fingers brush stone, and the Fade screams again.

###

Kit never closed her eyes, but now she opens them. This is different. She’s standing, carrying her things and her memories.

It looks like Kit has escaped from the Fade, except everything is too crisp where she looks and too soft around the edges, just like in ‘House Brosca.’ The walls and floor are white marble and frosted glass like Kinloch, but there are blood spatters and streaks everywhere. The black ceiling is bleeding down the walls, but when she studies it, it’s smoke stains. She can smell burned flesh. A rotten-meat smell is here, too, blending with the smell of blood.

Kit is at the end of a hall in the Circle, the heavy door behind her closed. This door doesn’t match the setting but fits perfectly in its frame. It’s an arch, but with a pointed top. The metal has layers: diagonal lines over the base. Over that, two exaultant sets of lines holding a ring or circle close to the tip-top. If those lines were people, they would be joyous, dancing, and headless. Kit tries the door, half-expecting to find a medival world behind it, but the edges of the door are fused, and the handle is only a decoration.

Kit turns to the glass walls borrowed from the Circle. Shadows pace along the frosted, blood-spattered glass of rooms scattered down the hall. Kit draws her dagger and hatchet and stalks forward. As she moves, space around her seems to speed up and slow down at the same time. Kit is going too fast, but she progresses too slowly. Kit hates the disorientation and impatience it gives her.

_This is not real. There has to be a way out._

One of the shadows on the frosted glass speaks. “As crazy sons and daughters of dogs in various forms, we cannot let anyone pass. What the hell is with sanity?” Probably more demons. Nobody real talks like that.

Kit stalks as quietly as possible past three rooms. She reaches the end of this hall, avoiding the rooms for now, and finds a metal door to match the one she appeared next to. She tugs on the handle, but it’s no more real than the last one. _Shit._

The room on this end of the hall had only two shadows mumbling inside, so she decides to take a chance there. She inches the door open to peer inside, but a demon lobs a fireball at her. Kit slams the door and makes distance, willing the glass to hold. As expected, the glass is spell-proof and blast-proof. She shrugs and yanks the door open to kick some ass.

The demon is shaped like a barrel, but taller, green-grey ribs running down its sides and rimmed in spikes. Spells erupt from the top, in this case ice hitting Kit on the left shoulder. The other shadow was a mage in a chunky blue sweater, who giggles and lobs tiny shots of electrical nano at Kit with her staff. Each only stings, but cumulatively they’re taking their toll. Zap. Zap. Zap. It gets on Kit’s nerves fast.

Kit dives right in, starting with the demon. She stabs not-too-deep (to avoid being stabbed by the spines) and runs her knife around to the back of the demon to put it between herself and the mage. A clear oil runs in rivulets from the wound, spattering the floor and smelling like fuel. She lodges her hatchet in the demon, pulls her new gun with her now-free hand, shoots the mage, puts the gun away, and pulls the hatchet back out of the demon. _Wait till I tell Alistair I used his move._ Her hit slows the mage down enough Kit can hack with hatchet and long knife until the demon shivers and slumps, no longer casting spells.

Kit bolts for the mage as she readies a spell, nano swirling around her. The closer the better. The mage backs up, distance its only defense, but Kit bats her clumsy arms aside and sticks her dagger under her chin, up through her mouth and brain. She drops her staff and grabs Kit’s arms, but when Kit pulls the knife out she convulses and collapses. Kit wonders if anything is real in this place.

A man steps out of a shadowed but _empty_ corner, wearing a purple nano-pilot sweater. They freeze for two heartbeats before he casts a lightning bolt at her. Kit dodges, running behind him, and stabs him between the ribs, aiming for his heart. He drops, eyes staring unseeing. She checks all three bodies for anything useful, but doesn’t find anything.

She examines the corner. It’s… slippery. If she looks directly, it’s a shadow cast by nothing or by the weird Fade lighting, but if she looks to one side, it’s a very narrow hallway. Too narrow for a person to slip through. The man had looked a bit like the passageway as he stepped out. Like a shadow.

She touches the shadow-wall. It is as real as anything else here.

This is the Fade. She looks away from the wall. The shadow under her hand shifts, pulls at her skin and hand like the air intake on her bike. She jerks her hand away, looks at the wall. If she looks at the wall while touching it, will she get her hand trapped, maybe damaged? Better not test that. She puts her hand out and closes her eyes. The pull resumes, more like an urge to move forward than a physical pull. So she walks.

That scream again, the muddle of smells and emotions, and she’s standing in the inner ring. The glittering person here is gone, but Zevran is within reach.

Another scream, a hallway again but wood-lined.

Zevran shouts “What the fuck!” from the room closest to Kit. She opens the door to find Zev pinned against the wall by a woman slightly taller than him, his head turned away from Kit and the woman. “You’re dead,” he whispers.

She doesn’t look dead. She’s a little taller than him, red hair covering her ears, black leather armor, including the same sort of wrap over her wrists. Her belt pouches are arranged exactly the same way Zevran has his. Her long black coat has puffed sleeves and a neon-green collar. It hilights her figure but allows for weaponry and armor. Knives, maybe a gun. Too tailored for much chest armor beyond leather.

“I don’t have to be,” she purrs, caressing his face.

Zevran turns to her, and Kit can see his eyes. He is tormented, conflicted.

“You can live again,” she offers. “You can kill again.”

He kisses her.

Kit says, “Zevran, I know you’re a great lover, but demons?”

“Who?” Zevran startles, breaking the kiss, glances between Rinna and Kit. “No, that’s not… possible. What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you, apparently. That’s not—did you call her Rinna?”

The demon releases Zevran and turns to Kit, taunting and amused. “Who is this? Some mark Talisien hasn’t finished yet?”

Kit’s hackles rise at the tone. She’s no mark. Kit’s hands rest on her dagger and gun.

Rinna smirks. “Stay out of this. It is no affair of yours.”

“That man is _literally_ my affair.” Kit smiles wickedly. “Not that I’d let a demon have him, but as a bonus I’m counting on your _prey_ to get me out of this place alive.” Kit says to Zevran, “You’re in the Fade. Your body is unconscious in the Tower. Don’t worry, I caught you without damage to your pretty face. Look like you’re wearing the most ridiculous helmet, by the way, really awful. I’ve probably got something similar. Gross.”

Zevran slides off the wall but also away from Kit. If she misses her shot, she could hit him. Kit draws her dagger but fumbles for her axe.

“You! You’ve ruined everything!” Rinna draws matching blades, long daggers like Kit’s off-hand weapon.

She’s _fast._ Before Kit draws her axe, Rinna dives in, burning a slash on Kit’s ribs. Kit’s dagger skids off armor as Rinna slips behind. An arm around Kit’s throat and blade coming too fast.

“No! Rinna!” Zevran shouts. “I’m sworn to protect her.”

“You also swore we’d always be together. Isn’t that promise worth more?”

Kit buries her dagger in Rinna’s leg, grabs the arm with both empty hands, and drops into a ball, taking screaming Rinna with her. She’s _still_ too fast and slithers out before Kit can lock a good hold. They both scramble to their feet. Kit draws her axe and glass knife.

“Our kills were never our choice. With her, it’s different. Better,” Zevran is saying. He draws his blades. “And you are not Rinna,” he growls.

Not-Rinna lunges, and Kit dodges to one side, binding her arm and sliding the glass knife between her ribs. Zevran stabs in from the back and shatters the glass in Rinna’s chest. Her knees give out, and as she lands she cranes her neck unnaturally and looks at Zevran with a look more loaded with betrayal than anything Leske or even Rica pulled off.

_He hurt her, whoever she is._

But the look on his face betrays as much pain or more. Zevran slits her throat, and a pool of blood spreads around her.

“You brought this upon yourself when you became Kit’s enemy,” he says coldly. He slips in her blood and then calmly walks to the corner, ignoring Kit. He throws up behind a small table.

Once he’s done, he says, “How do we escape, Joyela? I could use a change of scenery.” He’s forcing his voice to be jovial. Cannot be good.

“Here,” Kit says. Opens the door to a clothset, grabs Zevran’s hand, and steps through.


	11. Fade Morrigan is Badass

Zevran finds himself not in a closet but standing on a floating rock, hand-in-hand with Kit. There is a dark shadow on a granite lump in the inner ring, and the lump to their left is empty, but all the other lumps have shining, translucent people on them. It’s wondrous, but the _smell_! It’s so strong he can’t sort out the parts. Zevran covers his nose with the sleeve of his black coat at the same time he recognizes the people on the outer lumps of floating rock. Morrigan is closest to them, Alistair and Wynne furthest.

Kit glances over her shoulder at him wordlessly, and he says, “Joyela, where are we?”

She turns to face them. “I need you to believe everything I say about this place.” Zevran glances around: Morrigan arguing with the air, Alistair laughing loud and hard, Wynne with a kindly smile on her face, gazing down at someone. All of the sound is covered by the crowd of voices in this place.

“No one else to believe,” he points out.

“No one else to doubt, either,” Kit says. “I don’t”—she takes a big breath. “We need to rescue Morrigan, and until then I need your absolute trust. Not _acting_ like you believe me, but I need you to _believe_ me. We’ll be safer. Can you do that?”

She’s really pushing this, and he’s rattled, so Zevran thinks about whether this is something he can give her. He thinks about their talks, when they fight together, and the way she giggled in the closet last night.

He meets her eyes. “I can do that, Joyela,” he says.

“We’re in the Fade,” Kit says. Zevran nods. It makes perfect sense. “We’re getting our friends and we’re going back to the tower.” Zevran nods again, willing himself to believe it, and the rock they’re standing on crunches under his feet, moves closer to the inner ring. The other loose worlds move closer, too, as if yanked by this rock on invisible strings. The empty world hops even with this one, pulling Wynne and even Alistair slightly closer. An echo of rumbling settles in the Fade. Every translucent image of a person is looking around, wondrous and fearful, as if they heard it, too.

Kit nods at him, smirking. “Thank you,” she says. She reaches for the lump in the inner ring between them and Morrigan. The Fade screams.

###

Zevran is surrounded by snow, high brick row houses, and a cobbled road, still holding hands with Kit. The air smells of acrid smoke, burning flesh and homes, and there’s heat radiating off the brick like ovens, creating puddles of water where snow once drifted against them. Some of the doorways into buildings are blocked by strange curtains of lightning. Something doesn’t sound right, like they’re not really outside or there’s a thick, low cloud cover. Zevran looks up to discover the sky is green, with bits of rock floating in it.

Kit turns to Zevran, releasing his hand, brows furrowed but eyes wide.

“What’s wrong, Joyela?” Zevran is concerned.

“We’re in Ostagar. Well, Fade-Ostagar.” Her voice is tight, high.

“The Destitute Town? Why would we be there?” Zevran says. Sure enough, there are the rumored broken-glass towers on a cliff looming above them.

“Someone was at the Battle of Ostagar. Wynne said she came from there. Uldred escaped the worst of it, but this…” Kit steps forward, and Zevran follows closely, pulling his daggers out. “How did they survive?” she whispers. _They did survive, then._ Flames leap over a few rooves, making the light dance.

“This could be a scrap of drone feed gleaned from the Fade,” Zevran says hopefully, even as his blood starts pumping and he gets that pleasant thrill across his chest that he gets before every fight. His nerves thrum pleasantly, ready to meet any demand.

“Too immediate,” Kit says, looking around them. “The drones were distant. This is the memory of someone in the thick of it. _After_ the thick of it.”

A door opens in front of them and to the right. Darkspawn pour out, too many, the mold in their flesh easy to see.

“Not dying here, lover,” Kit says quietly. “Side door, now.”

The door to their left opens at a touch, and they slide behind and close it.

There are hissing wordless whispers coming through the floorboards. Darkspawn in the basement. They walk softly, but behind a rotting couch they discover a hole with a hodge-podge of ropes and a broken ladder leading down. Kit backs away. Zevran nods to an out-of-place ornate metal door on the back wall, but Kit shakes her head and nods to an open hallway on the right.

Zev follows past one bedroom door and toward another. The things he looks at become more real, the Fade haze fuzzing his peripheral vision. His speed is disorienting and fun to mess with, like he’s building tolerance to a new poison. The interior walls are wood, which explains how brick buildings can do so much burning. Through a wooden door they’re confronted with an empty room with a brick wall forward and to the right. A moldy flowered curtain to the right covers a small square of light on the right. Kit peeks behind the curtain.

“Darkspawn still outside,” she mutters to Zevran. There’s a scrabbling behind them: darkspawn crawling out of the hole back in the living room.

Zevran closes the door, calmly and quietly.

They listen to the darkspawn clambering to the street. There’s a steady stream.

Zev walks softly to her and says, “If we’re to be rescuing others, this may be our only chance to be alone in the Fade.”

“I won’t tell others about your predicament,” Kit responds. “I know from the one they found for me that it was deeply personal, and none of my business.”

“Surely the others will ask, no? But no need to hide it. The demons used a former lover,” Zevran says, flipping his hand carelessly. Kit knows better, but hopefully she won’t press.

“I’m-I’m sorry for getting you to kill her.”

Zevran flinches away from her. “You did not make me kill Rinna,” he says. “You helped me see a demon had stolen her face and was trying to devour me, bones and all. Of course, if the demon also stole other things from her, I suspect I wouldn’t have minded.” Zevran smiles a tight smile, and before he can stop himself he says, “I have never killed Rinna.”

Kit laughs. “I have never killed Leske or Rica, but it sure feels like it.”

“That’s your best friend and your sister, is it not?” Zev turns his smile on for her. “Would you like a hug? Because I suspect we could both use one.”

Kit tilts her head. “A hug?”

“Yes,” Zevran says, grinning at her confusion, “It’s a process of wrapping your arms around one another. Seems quite pleasant, if you ask me.”

“I know what a hug is, idiot,” Kit says. “It just… seems an odd time for it.”

“If not now, we might never get another chance, no?” Zevran says.

Kit wraps her arms around Zevran, and he returns the gesture. It feels good, calms him.

“They’re alive, I hope,” she says, but she cries anyway. Zevran doesn’t say anything, just settles them on the floor, tears running down his face as he tries not to think about it, and holds her as darkspawn continue to scrabble up out the hole and front door.

When they spend their tears, Kit grabs his chin and pulls it down to look at her. “Hey.” She says.

Zev opens his eyes. “Hey.”

“We made it so far. We’re here,” Kit says.

“Did you mean what you said, about needing me to escape alive?”

Kit smirks. It’s far more playful than her grim smile. “I’ve thought so since you kidnapped me,” she admits.

“I’m glad you need me, if only for a little while.” Zev settles into her embrace, closing his eyes again when she hums.

“I’m glad you want me, if only for a little while.”

Zev sighs against her. “I do, Joyela. Even now, even in the Fade, I want you.”

“Even with all the heartache this place has put us through?” she asks softly.

“Especially with that.”

“You’re my kind of fucked up,” she says approvingly. Zevran opens his eyes; she isn’t smiling, but she’s sincere.

“What would it be like, do you think,” Zevran asks, “to fuck in the Fade?” His smile is genuine now. “This place is partly made of our minds, right? How do you think that would affect things?”

Kit considers him. “How do you think it would affect things?”

Zevran licks his lips. “If I know what I’m doing will feel good to you, does that on its own enhance the pleasure?”

“It would for me,” Kit says, “Fade or not.” _Oh, damn, that’s hot._

“Yeah,” he says and presses his arms around her, not to comfort but to feel and _make_ feel.

They pause, and Zevran considers. They’ve only had sex once before, in a dark closet. The Fade has made them kill loved ones to get this far, and its mechanics would leave them wide open to each other.

“This is… risky, isn’t it?” Kit says, bumping her forehead against Zev’s. “I’ll be an open fucking book to you.”

“As will I, Joyela.”

“Do you want out?”

“How could I resist the chance for such intensity?” he asks playfully.

“Zevran. You won’t be able to deflect. The pain from-from this place is raw. We haven’t talked about our pasts at all. Something might slip out.” Kit’s hands grip his arms.

Zevran suddenly realizes what she might be hiding from him and asks, “Who was it, Joyela?” He’s surprised his voice comes out a growl.

“What?” she asks, bewildered.

“I will take care of them for you, no? Who was it?”

Kit smirks and sets a hand on his chest. “Too late, duster, I took _real_ good care of him.”

Zevran nods. “Being with you. It doesn’t remind me of the past. Your touch consumes me; it’s all I can think about.” _And I want that right now, I need it._

“I hadn’t considered that,” Kit admits. “It’s that way for me, too, or was the once we’ve done it. But I get… random thoughts, especially if I’m working on a problem. If the sex is very good, sometimes solutions will just pop into my head.”

“I would like to distract you from those random thoughts, if you will allow me,” Zevran says, keeping his arm where it is: not forward, not retreating.

Kit studies his face. “I would enjoy that.”

“Let’s think only of pleasant things, no?” Zevran says and leans to brush his lips against Kit’s. Her hard lines melt under his touch, but she springs back, presses against him, demands his body, his pleasure.

Zevran methodically removes her armor and rolls a shoulder or wiggles a leg to help her remove his. When they get to their underclothes, he is surprised to find a simple breast binding, panties, and expertly-wrapped bandages at all the rub-points under her armor. No actual shirt. He touches a bandage over her shoulder, (and knows the shame of the habit from poverty, but nothing protects her skin as well. She hasn’t had time or patience to try more than a single spare shirt when she’d first had spending money from the Carta, which bunched and made armor chaffing worse.)

She has landed straddled across his lap again, but this time his legs are crossed flat and she wraps her legs behind him. He unfastens the breast binding, supports her back to lean her away and down, and kisses between her breasts. She releases his arms and presses her breasts to his cheeks (just to feel his face and the pleasant squeeze it makes on her breasts).

He moans his appreciation, and turns his head to lick and kiss the side of one while pressing into the other. She pulls her legs tight, digging her bare heels against his ass and grinding onto his cock. Everything is his pleasure (and hers). They repeat the motion—kissing, writhing, breathing heavier—until his arms grow tired. He swipes his tongue across her nipple, and she gasps (at the jolt of arousal) and sits up involuntarily. He chuckles and moves his hand to that nipple, rubbing while she pulls herself closer, trapping his hand between their chests. His other hand moves to appreciate her ass properly. Her nails graze his back whenever he gets to the place where her legs meet her ass. She moans into his neck and shoulder, sucking and using her tongue, and it feels like enjoying a fine meal or a symphony: exquisite.

She’s pressed completely down his front, tight against his cock. If it weren’t for their smallclothes, her clit would be slotted perfectly against him. He shoves his down just an inch or two so that it’s not trapped anymore, and she leans back, trails a finger in the single bead of precum that has leaked out, and licks it (sharp, bitter). _Fuck._

Zevran groans. “Joyela, that is so hot it’s unfair.”

Kit just hums and reaches into her own smallclothes, (a thrill of pleasure) then traces a line of her own umame moisture along his lower lip. “Is that better?” she asks huskily. (Do you like that, she whispers. Is that the kind of treat you had in mind, she asks teasingly.)

Zevran grunts as his mind whites out. He lifts her off him (with her help), stands her up, and strips out of his briefs. She turns her back to him, slowly lowering her panties off that glorious ass. Zevran springs to his knees, crawls two steps, slides her panties down faster to grab her generous ass in both hands, and licks the top of the crevice. Her gasp of surprised pleasure is gratifying, so he parts her cheeks and slides his tongue down her crack.

“Oh, oh, shit, what! Fuck, yes,” Kit chants softly (with surprise and pleasure). Then he reaches the sensitive skin around her back entrance, and she loses balance a little, legs held close by her half-stripped panties. “Shit, Zevran, oh, that’s good, keep-keep doing that.”

Zevran widens his knees and smiles into his task, kneading Kit’s ass cheeks and probing along her crack with his wet tongue. She tastes of bitter soap and salty sweat, and he wonders what she tastes like outside the Fade, considering neither of them have tasted her ass before.

She bursts into motion, and he stands while she slides her panties the rest of the way down and steps out of them. The way she bends completely over to hold her underwear down presents far too tempting a target, and he lunges in for a single (shocking, thrilling) swipe from her clit to the top of her ass crack again, raising up on his knees. She gasps and nearly falls over, but Zev’s hands steady her.

She stands again and says, “Can I fuck you now?”

“No,” he says, standing too. “Will you suck me first?”

A shot of amusement, then. “In the name of fairness?” But she crouches on her knees and swipes her tongue up his cock. (The tip tastes of precum again.) “Is that enough?”

Zevran smiles at her and says, “More, please.”

She does it again, layering the pleasure wetly on his cock.

“Hmm, more,” he says at her raised eyebrow.

She repeats this motion again and again, and each time feels better to Zevran. She works faster and faster at his soft, “more, more,” until he’s begging and she slides her mouth to sheathe him. This she continues until he’s begging her to ride him instead. She continues a little longer, perhaps to hear his voice crack and feel the _need_ in his body, then they rearrange. He sits, and she straddles his hips with his legs straight this time, and they work together to lower her tortuously onto his cock. The wet, hot pleasure is exactly as he remembered it. When he releases her ass to squeeze her breasts, she clenches once and he nearly cums. She doesn’t make it easy, those strong legs raising and lowering her over his cock. He bows himself uncomfortably to lick and suckle her tits, which makes her wet and hot and him hard and trying not to get overwhelmed. She must cum first, he has a rule.

“Fuck, I’m going to”—she cuts off with a strangled yell and pulses around him, and he can watch the pleasure pulse up her body without being completely connected to his own body. It feels _so good_ , but at the same time it’s not quite touching him. He’s never been able to literally watch a lover’s pleasure like this before, and it’s mesmerizing. Sex in the Fade was an excellent idea.

“Your turn,” she says and pushes him onto his back, but she’s still panting. She rides him hard, slamming herself onto him (and not entirely surprised when her own pleasure builds again). He’s trying to hold out until she cums (just as she’s trying to hold out for him), but she twists her hips just _so_ and he starts cumming as she cums a second time. It’s a sort of electrical feedback loop, a Jacob’s ladder of pleasure between them (not like when it was lava with the duster with the red hair or that intense rush of pleasure with Zev last time or the gentle waves when she fucked Garek.)

Zevran is lying on wood, not stone, when he is aware of where he is again, Kit draped across him luxuriantly. He kisses the top of her head.

“Good morning,” he swears.

She laughs appreciatively and says, “No effect with the Fade. Oh, holy frell it was excellent.”

“What do you mean, Joyela? I could feel what you were feeling at times. Sometimes there were memories.” Maybe he should think before he says things like this. She has that pinch between her brows again. “Good ones, hot ones,” he says to reassure her.

“What?!? You saw memories of my times with others?”

Zevran is puzzled. “No, just flashes, if something we did was similar to what you’d done before, and liked.”

“I’m sorry. No one wants to see that sort of thing.”

“How rude, Joyela. I very much enjoyed it. I didn’t expect I was your first, you’re too skilled. It was good for me, knowing you have enjoyed the act in various forms, no? It was like being able to fuck you multiple times at once. Most satisfying,” he concludes with a smile.

Kit examines him, then says, “Good. I expect a proper dwarven wedding if you get me with child.” Then she laughs out loud, “The look on your face! Don’t worry, it’s unlikely for Wardens, and I (now) know better than to tie you down. (There are minerals that will prevent that sort of thing.)”

Zev clears his throat. “Joyela, don’t joke about such things here. I can feel more than you can hide. If it comes to that, we shall see where we are at and make our decisions from there.”

“I don’t want a dwarven wedding, Zevran,” Kit says, reaching for her pants. “I just want you.”

“Kit. I am not… the most reliable of lovers.” Zevran follows her lead, collecting his clothes even if he’s loath to break her warm touch.

“That’s okay Zev, I’ll take what I can get.”

“An idealist? A romantic?” Zevran teases, standing with his armful of clothing and armor.

“No. You’re good at this, and I’ll take pleasure when I can. And… you deserve pleasure, too, especially in this hell hole.” Very faintly, now that their contact is broken: (I care about you.)

“You deserve my best,” Zevran admits, hoping his unspoken regard comes through as he pulls on his underwear and leggings.

“During… during. You could feel me, but I couldn’t feel you?” Kit has her breast band on again, and now pulls on her chest armor.

Zevran drops his tee shirt over his head. “It seems that way.”

“So you’re connected somehow to this part of the Fade, and I’m not.” She’s strapping armor for shins and knees on over those protective bandages before she puts on her baggy cargo pants.

“Perhaps that is so, Joyela,” he concedes, wondering if they can find him better armor.

“Shit I’m glad Morrigan is next around the ring, she might be able to make sense of this.”

Zevran smirks at the fun he could have describing his part of the puzzle to Morrigan. “So, how are we getting to her, Joyela?”

“I’ve left every section of the Fade by going through a door,” she says, thinking about it, “but I’ve gone through doors without leaving that section of the Fade. In the Brosca estate, I got out through the first door I went through after… and later, the first door we went through together.”

“Estate? You want to be a noble?” he lets his surprise into his voice as he straps his belts on with their handy pouches.

She’s fiddling with a strap of her armor that has twisted. He absent-mindedly flips it for her, and she explains, “Nobles have better protection.”

Zevran gets out a blade and admires the flash of fire from outside the window on its surface. “Not in my experience,” he says.

Kit pecks him on the cheek and says, “Focus, lover. We need to get out of here.”

“Of course,” he says, smirking, and puts away his dagger. “They say the Fade gives you what you seek, so if we figure out the differences, we can probably walk to what we need. What about the third place, the one between Brosca estate and my old flat?” It’s a guess, since she didn’t go straight for Morrigan, that she _couldn’t_.

“I appeared at the end of the hall, snuck down the hall, entered a room, killed a mage and a demon—no, two mages and a demon—and left through a magical crack in a wall.”

“Excellent,” Zevran says, strapping on Kit’s old chest protector, adjusting the straps for the best fit. “One of those people or the spirit was the key. Probably the spirit, since you didn’t kill people in the other two.”

“Unless the person’s awareness is the key?” she says thoughtfully. “Like the person tied to that part of the Fade has to know you exist?”

“Also a possibility,” Zevran says, finishing with his armor.

“We can figure it out by trying one at a time,” Kit decides, pulling on her jacket. She checks her weapons and pats two pouches, one on each side, the same as her morning ritual before she heads out. “We passed a door in the hall on the way here. There’s a crack in the wall in that room that leads to the person keyed to this place.”

“What? How do you know that?” Zevran throws the Redcliff elf’s long coat over his armor, enjoying the soft _whomf_ of the fabric.

“Trust me,” Kit says, projecting confidence. Zevran does trust her. He worries for one moment that she’s somehow mastered blood magic, but realizes that, no, she’s just trustworthy.

The Darkspawn have finished running their errands, settling either in the basement tunnels or outside. He follows her into the other bedroom, this one with an actual bed, though moldy and rotting. There’s a shadow in the corner that’s not accounted for by the lighting of the room.

“Here’s how the shadow door works: if you look directly at it, it becomes a shadow, but if you aren’t looking it’s a passageway.”

“Perfect Fade logic,” Zevran mutters, eyeing the corner suspiciously.

“It’s going to lead us to the person trapped here,” Kit says confidently.

Zevran realizes she’s shaping the Fade with her considerable will and decides that it’s the best course of action. “It will lead us there directly,” he says, willingly believing her.

“Good man,” Kit says. “Let’s go.”

Zevran closes his eyes, wondering who they’ll meet at the end of this passage.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *add busted screen door


	12. Electrical Walls

Something approaches when Godwin had thought there were no doors to his room. He makes himself as small as possible in his wardrobe.

“They’re in there,” a female voice says. Darkspawn speak Trade? Godwin screams when the door flings open.

An elf claps a hand over Godwin’s mouth. “Shut up, fool,” he says.

“Thank the Maker!” Godwin breathes when he’s allowed. “You’re not darkspawn!”

The dwarf who spoke before asks, “What are you doing in there?”

How undignified. But Godwin’s willing to sacrifice a little dignity to survive darkspawn.

“I’ll come out, don’t hurt me!” he says, raising his arms, hands spread, as he stumbles out. The elf catches him.

“How did you get here?” Godwin asks. “I was the only survivor.”

The dwarf says, “What do you remember after Ostagar?”

“After? This _is_ Ostagar.”

“No, it isn’t. You escaped Ostagar, remember? You came back to the Circle Tower. It went to shit when Uldred tried to take over.”

“I was – injured? Wynne was caring for me. She swore and we used the ambulance.”

“Wynne swore?” the elf asks, amused.

“Like ‘horsefeathers’?” the dwarf clarifies.

“No, like ‘shit.’” Godwin smiles. They definitely know Wynne. That helps.

The dwarf laughs. “I’m going to have to bring that up with her, when we find her.”

“She’s here?” Godwin’s startled.

“Presumably in her own nightmare, but yes. She’s in the Fade with us,” the dwarf says. “There are darkspawn out there, but next we need to get to our friend on the next island over. You seem safe enough in this room. I assume hiding is how you got out of Ostagar alive.”

“I’m a dangerous nano pilot, fully Harrowed,” Godwin says, holding up one hand, covered in lightning. The pair looks pointedly at his armoire, and he nods sheepishly. “Wynne hid me in her ambulance.”

“She drove?” the elf asks.

“Of course. She’s a healer mage. They all have ambulance training.”

“That means there are ambulances in Kinloch? Good to know,” the elf says.

“There may be a garage at the docks,” the dwarf says and turns to the pilot. “How about a visit to our friend?” It seems to be an invitation.

“Whatever your friend has dreamed up could be worse than my hidey hole. I’ll stay here, thank you.”

The dwarf nods. “If we need you or we find a safer place, we’ll come back.”

“I’ll be here,” Godwin says and climbs back into his armoire, giving a Ferelden salute to salvage his dignity and pulling the door shut behind him.

Their steps retreat. Godwin hadn’t even asked how they got in.

### Zevran POV

Zevran lands in a small wooden hut, hand still tight in Kit’s. The floors are polished wood and there are no rotting gaps between the boards, unlike Ostagar. An entire wall is lined with pegs, every peg holding a large bundle of drying herbs. Braids of onions and garlic hang from the ceiling, with spaces where bulbs have been cut free of their braided leaves. A small fire burns low on a stone platform; the wall there is also lined with stone, and there’s a wire mesh over the hole in the ceiling over the fire. A large iron pot hangs from a hook, suspended near the fire but not over it at the moment. Firewood is stacked neatly against a wall a safe distance away. Jars of dried herbs and stacks of root vegetables are arranged on a nearby table. Larger jars hold grains, dried beans, nuts, and pickled things on a shelf on one wall. Some of the pickles are whole animals. One of the strings hanging from the ceiling holds a collection of antlers, a variety of feathers, and teeth. There’s a stack of leather hides next to two bedrolls tucked into one corner and a footlocker for other belongings. Everything is in clear detail, but Zevran recognizes nothing. The humid air smells faintly of rotting things and wet dog.

“This must be Flemeth’s hut,” Kit says.

“Flemeth? Why is that name familiar to me?”

Kit shrugs. “Shouldn’t be. Flemeth is Morrigan’s mother, a witch in the Kokari Wilds.”

“Another Witch of the Wilds? Perhaps I have heard of her,” Zevran says, picking up a skull from a shelf, examining its beak, and setting it carefully back.

Kit gives Zevran a quick kiss, surprising him, then heads out the front door onto the porch. There are two figures sitting on the ground below not far away, and Kit leads him down the stairs to the squishy ground. She skirts one of the many ponds. Every plant and scrambling, splashing animal is in clear detail, nothing fades at the edges the way it did in others’ worlds.

Morrigan is sitting knees-up on a tanned skin on the ground, forearms resting on her knees, bowl in her hands, leggings preserving her modesty. A woman old enough to be her mother is sitting with her.

“Tell me about your new companions,” the woman says.

“I see no reason to do that, spirit. ’Tis not a worthwhile diversion. Not that your rendition of stew is better. Even Alistair makes better food.”

“What a way to talk to your mother.”

“Maybe I should go and find them. I’d hate to pass in the dark, though.” Morrigan muses to herself. “I should not have let this spirit build even this much detail.”

“So much faith in me, Morrigan.” Kit strides into the clearing, Zevran trailing behind. “You knew I’d break free? The demons are very convincing.”

Morrigan scoffs, standing and tossing the nearly-full bowl aside. Nothing spills. “Not that convincing. Who’d the spirits impersonate for you?”

“My best friend and sister from back home,” Kit responds.

Morrigan quirks an eyebrow at Zevran. “Former lover,” he says with a calculated smirk.

Morrigan nods. “Might we be rid of this spirit and leave this part of the Fade then?”

“You would turn on your own mother?” Flemeth stands, too, setting her own bowl carefully aside.

Morrigan laughs. “You are not even close to my mother. Catching up on new happenings? Reliving old times? You took what I fed you, spirit, and no more.”

Kit laughs. “Always good to have someone familiar with the Fade on your team. I hope Wynne is as easy to free.”

“Perhaps. That fool Alistair will have fallen for it, though. Hook, line, and sinker,” Morrigan says.

“We’ll see,” Kit says.

The demon-mother looks annoyed at being ignored. Zevran shakes his head in amusement. Only Kit and her companions would risk angering a demon when politeness is as easy.

“You wouldn’t care to wager on it, would you?” Morrigan says. Zevran’s ears perk. Morrigan underestimates their shielded companion. He weighs whether this is truly one of those times.

Kit sighs. “No, I would not. But not why you think.”

Morrigan tilts her head.

“Alistair trusts,” Kit explains as spirit-Flemeth fusses and fumes. Zevran draws his daggers. “He’s not stupid. But his ability to trust does mean he might fall for whatever his spirits cook up.”

“Alistair never trusted me so easily,” Morrigan flicks her fingers. “Tis irrelevant, though. Lead on.”

Kit turns back to the hut, away from the demon, who moves unnaturally fast.

“I cannot let you leave,” Flemeth says, blocking the way.

“Oh! I’d forgotten about you.” Morrigan smirks at the image of her mother.

“Look,” Kit says reasonably, her deadly smile visible as Zevran flanks the demon, “I don’t know what killing you means here, but it’s avoidable.”

The demon laughs, and Zevran gets into position unnoticed. “The chance my own emotional host—or three!—to process the Fade? I’ll risk it.” The demon conjures three more elemental demons.

“That’s the point? Good to know.” Kit draws her knife and axe.

Morrigan’s fireball knocks one demon into wispy dust and knocks Flemeth over. It doesn’t affect Zevran at all.

“Holy shit, chica!” Kit says, still grinning.

Morrigan shrugs. “I’m not limited by my nano supply. This is pure Fade. You’re not limited by your body. You could move faster, too.” Zevran listens carefully as he moves into position behind the second demon.

“How?” Kit asks, eyeing their opponents.

“Just do it, but keep it within the realm of the possible.”

 _I’m faster._ Zevran thinks. _I’m faster than this._ He believes it. He stabs faster and deeper at the demon trying to flank Kit while her attention is elsewhere. It is down. “One,” he says, laughing as it wisps away into the fabric of the Fade.

Kit grins. “One for me!” Her demon wisps away. Zevran glances over, and she is moving faster, too. Zevran swings his leg between Flemeth’s legs, hitting flat and hard. She doubles over, as even women will do. Kit sprints to stab the witch’s back with both weapons. _She’s faster._

“Two can play that game,” Flemeth cackles as she stands again, wounds healing.

Morrigan sends a spike of ice through her. “There aren’t two here. There are four. And you cannot access my processing starting… now.”

The ground shifts under Zevran’s feet, like he’s standing on a wrinkled sheet that people around the edges pull taut. He keeps his footing, but the edges of the scene crumble away, like a cliff crumbling into the sea. As he stabs Flemeth again, a rise of ground brakes off and floats up like an earthquake before it floats completely free. The chunk of Fade-swamp drips water and green light as it floats away.

 _Focus, Arainai._ Flemeth screams, slashing out with claws at Kit as she stabs her. Flemeth’s arms and legs have become longer, skinnier. Her nano pilot robe is melding into her skin. Kit dodges, but Zevran is not so lucky. His armor is slashed open, and the wound beneath feels like embers.

“Keeeya!” Kit yells as she jumps onto the tall spirit’s back, higher than she should be able to. _No, just high enough._ She uses her blades to climb it. Zevran is dazed, watching Kit. Standing on its shoulders, she drops her axe and stabs into the spirit’s head with both hands. Flemeth falls, unheeding, uncaring. Kit leaps head-first and rolls to her feet when she hits the ground. She runs back to Zevran.

“Am I bleeding?” he gasps. _Am I dying?_

“I have elfroot. Hold on, Zev, you’re going to be fine.” _I’m going to be fine?_

Morrigan smirks. “I can heal him. Better than even Wynne could in the real world.” Morrigan uses her staff. Zevran’s wounds pull at the edges to close like a zipper. Kit furrows her brow.

“Morrigan is healing you, Zevran,” she says. “You _will_ be _fine._ ” His wounds pull together faster, and the dull deeper pain sharpens as it heals. He was gravely injured once before. This feels like that entire two-week recovery compressed into two minutes.

“So I can feel,” he gasps. “It’s disconcerting, but appreciated.”

Soon he is patched up, breathing normally.

“Paragons, don’t do that,” Kit chides him as another chunk of Fade breaks off of the Kokari Wilds with a _crunch_.

“Which part, Joyela?” he asks, smiling automatically.

“Getting hit. Don’t get hit.” She’s perfectly serious.

“I’ll do my best, my Joyela,” Zevran laughs as he says it.

“Oh, gag me. You two are going to make me throw up in the corner.”

Kit laughs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We weren’t flirting, were we Zevran?”

“Flirting, us? Most certainly not. We were only—wait… perhaps we were?”

Kit mock-snarls at him. “Some backup you are.”

“You know I am,” he says, catching her around the waist. Morrigan makes retching motions, which only makes it more fun.

“You won’t be for long if you keep getting hit. So stop that,” Kit teases.

Zevran releases her to throw a salute, imitating the mage whose realm they’d just left. “At your word, Joyela.”

Morrigan makes choking sounds.

Another chunk of the swamp cuts off from the rest and floats slowly toward them. The grinding of its bottom tip against the swamp causes the ground to vibrate.

“Ah,” says Morrigan. “I have cut off from this section of the Fade. It might not keep its integrity much longer, unless another spirit comes along to patch it together. In either case, we should move on.”

“Right this way, then,” Kit directs. Zevran follows on her heels.

###

The next realm is misty and green, with twisted spires and floating chunks, but the landscape reminds Morrigan of a farm. There’s a clapboard storage shed a stone’s throw away, a loosely packed dirt road, and low stone fences that border plots with a vague sense of greenery in each one. Each fence ends sooner than would be useful, as if someone hadn’t bothered to finish them or ran out of materials. In the distance, a lightning gate crackles like a puzzle unsolved.

“Ah,” says Morrigan. “This must belong to another nano pilot, judging by how much of the Fade is showing. A declining realm. Perhaps it has been here a while?”

Kit nods. “Let’s find the person running this part of the Fade, shall we?”

“Right here,” says a despondent voice. It belongs to one of the leashed nano pilots in pale prisoners’ robes, once of many colors, leaning against a huge metal door set into one of the loose stone walls. “I’m afraid I’m powering this part of the Fade.”

“That’s an improvement. The last stranger we met didn’t know where he was,” says Zev.

“I’m a nano pilot. It’s more surprising that you do.”

“I had help,” Zevran says, gesturing toward Kit proudly.

“Warden Kit Brosca,” she says. “This is Zevran Arainai and Morrigan of the Kokari Wilds.”

“Niall of Kinloch Hold, if we’re introducing ourselves,” the nano pilot says.

Zevran looks around pointedly. “Most of the places we’ve been have demons to keep residents in place. What’s keeping you here, then?”

“Nothing.” Niall shrugs. “I’ve gone to various parts of this mess. I can’t get out and I can’t get to the center. The ring protects the center, which is where Sloth must be. You must defeat Sloth to escape back into your bodies, but that’s impossible.”

“It’s only impossible because no one’s done it yet. If we combine notes, maybe we’ll get a breakthrough.”

Niall shrugs. “Sure. I’ve nothing better to do.”

“What are some of the obstacles you’ve had trouble with?”

“Barriers of lightning have appeared since you came,” Niall says, gesturing toward the one in the distance. Morrigan’s curiosity about the gate renews.

“We’ve seen those other places,” Kit says.

“How do you get past them?” Morrigan asks.

“I’ve studied them a little, but it’s pointless. You have to reverse the charge to cancel it out. Sadly, I don’t know any lightning plans.”

Kit turns to Morrigan. “Do you have lightning?”

She shakes her head, wishing she did. “No. Well, not yet. We can meet someone who does, and I’ll learn it from them.”

“How can you be so sure you’ll meet someone?” Niall asks in bored tones. He still hasn’t stood.

“This fragment of the Fade is based in the Circle,” Morrigan says impatiently. “Dozens of nano pilots were probably trapped here. It’s also the Fade. We’ll seek and find a pilot with lighting nano, and I can get the plans from them. Then I shall work out a program to get us past the lightning walls. I could do it from scratch, but it would take longer.”

Zevran says, “Didn’t the other nano pilot we met flash a little lightning at us, Kit?”

“He did,” Kit says, then turns to Morrigan. “Wait, you want to look for existing plans? Who’s the hacker, now, Morrigan?”

Morrigan allows her voice to soar disbelievingly as she responds, “Our bodies are even now lying neglected on the floor of the Circle.” She waves her hand and explains, “We don’t have time for years of careful study.”

Kit quirks a brow and the edge of her upper lip and gestures as if locking her lips and throwing the imaginary key over her shoulder. Zevran pretends to catch it and put it in his pocket.

“Don’t tempt me,” Morrigan says, ignoring Zevran.

Kit smirks and turns back to Niall. “There was a metal door in the Kinloch-Hold-shaped part of this ring. It was sealed shut.”

“I saw a rock golem knock one of those down in another realm, but it attacked me when I tried to speak to it.” Niall says.

“We don’t have a golem,” Kit says.

“We have Alistair’s head,” Morrigan quips.

“You have an excellent point, dear bruja,” Zevran says.

Morrigan laughs. Usually the elf is on Alistair’s side. This change is refreshing. “You think it’s hard enough to break walls?”

“No, but I move faster now,” Zevran points out. “If Alistair can convince himself of something similar, he may be able to bash that shield of his through these doors.”

“You have a templar with you?” Niall asks, bored.

“Templar-trained,” Kit explains. “Grey Wardens recruited him before he could become a full templar.”

“Ah. I suppose that’s good. Our own templars are a bit… jumpy.”

“Yes,” Kit says. “Though as a Grey Warden, I have a biased opinion about that.” Morrigan wonders how deep Kit’s biases in support of Alistair run.

“The man knocks things off their feet all the time.” Zevran rubs his hands together. “I can hardly wait to see him bash a wall in.”

“Door,” Kit says and turns to Zevran. “Don’t tell me you have a crush?”

Zevran waves a hand. “Doesn’t matter. He’s as straight as the day is long. He examines you and Morrigan in ways he’s never looked at me. But surely you agree it will be fun to watch?”

_Alistair looks at me that way?_

Morrigan says, in a voice that is just a _bit_ higher than she meant to use, “My concern is convincing him that he has the power.”

“I think you can convince him,” Zevran says to Kit.

“Assuming we get that far,” Kit says grimly.

“Wait, if it’s only a matter of convincing ourselves of something, does it really matter what we use?” Zev asks.

“Unfortunately, if we don’t use something that already has physical rules, we run the risk of glitching in a self-contradiction,” Morrigan explains. “If I were to become a cloud of mist, I would need to know exactly how that cloud of mist behaves and interacts with other things so I never contradict myself in that form. The Fade has an internal structure that deletes contradictions.”

“That’s true,” Niall says, showing a little more interest. “Someone studying the Fade once tried becoming an insect here without first studying how insects move and behave. They were deleted in the Fade, and they became a husk with a chip in its head. Tranquil.”

Kit shivers, and Zevran looks vaguely horrified.

“If you just improve your own abilities, it shan’t be a problem,” Morrigan assures them, thinking that Alistair isn’t getting this talk. “You both have enough self-awareness, I’m not worried about you.” But Morrigan wrings her hands without thinking.

“You don’t think Alistair does?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps. “That hateful man knows exactly where he is at all times. It’s like breathing for him.”

“You’re not worried he might do something accidentally?” Zevran teases.

“No,” Morrigan says and stops wringing her hands, putting them firmly by her sides. “I’m not.”

Zevran is unconvinced. “Your concern for someone you profess to hate is magnanimous.”

“I asked you not to be ridiculous. We need him to get out of the Fade. That’s all.” Morrigan glances at the rogues. “And I’ll thank you _both_ to kindly stop smirking.”

“All right. Let’s go get him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get to Alistair before he does himself any lasting damage,” Kit teases.

Niall shrugs. “He is beyond that electrical barrier.” _Perhaps he is forgetting that we have a plan for his barriers?_

“I’ll take a look at it before we go,” Morrigan says.

Morrigan stands before the crackling wall of energy. The feeling of the Fade is different there, like when she casts a spell. She reaches slowly, feeling the shifts as her hand gets closer.

“Don’t!” shouts Kit, but it’s too late. A lance of energy shoots from the dancing white wall, jumping from it to Morrigan’s outstretched right hand. It shoots through her body, down through her right foot. She falls back, but Kit catches her.

Morrigan tries and fails to speak as Kit sets her upright. When she gets control of her voice, she says, “Sorry. I haven’t worked much with lightning.”

“Or electronics, I take it,” Kit teases. “Electricity likes to jump. Leske complained about it all the time.”

“You’d think it wouldn’t since it’s touching the floor already, but I’m sure it was designed this way.”

“Can you hack it?” Kit asks.

“Not directly,” Morrigan says. “It’s too active. I can’t get close enough to get its code.”

“Perhaps we should find that lightning nano pilot, no?” Zev says.

“Ostagar is probably the best bet for that. Niall, where’s the nearest unblocked door?”

### Kit POV

Kit reaches for Alistair’s world on the ring in spite of Morrigan’s warnings. Some things you have to learn the hard way.

Unfortunately, everyone else learns it too. Instead of the worlds moving strangely, a painful spark jumps from the central ring to Kit’s hand, then jumps to Morrigan and Zevran, too. Everyone cries out, a confusion of sound through Kit’s pain.

“Warden,” Morrigan chides tetchily, “I thought I made it clear…”

“Yeah, sorry,” Kit says, pride stinging as much as her body. She reaches for not-Ostagar instead.

### Godwin POV

Footsteps approach again, but this time Godwin peeks out of his wardrobe. Seeing the elf and the dwarf with a human friend, he steps out unprompted.

“Morrigan, this is…” the dwarf starts, then catches herself. “Hey, what’s your name?” So they do proper introductions. Kit and Zevran accompany Morrigan.

She asks if Godwin has lighting, and he says “Yes? Yes. I have a few lightning plans.”

“Excellent, you can teach them to Morrigan,” Kit says.

“The darkspawn seem to be drawn by magic, I don’t think it would be safe,” he explains.

“We need it to rescue Wynne and our other friend Alistair,” Kit explains. “We can take you to a safer realm.”

“I see. In that case… Is it more comfortable?”

“We’ll take you to Niall’s,” Kit offers. “That part of the ring is boring.”

“Excellent. Boring is good,” Godwin says, nodding.

### Zevran POV

Zevran follows everyone to Niall’s Fade-farm. Godwin and Morrigan put their heads together, but Kit interrupts them.

“How will this work, Morrigan?” she asks.

“We have to link up, then I can access his programs,” Morrigan explains. “One of them will be for lightning. I’ll create a copy and modify it for neutralizing the lightning gates.”

“Link up? Is that what kids are calling it these days?” Zev teases.

Morrigan makes a delightful disgusted noise.

Morrigan takes Godwin by the hand, setting palm to palm and lacing their fingers together. They close their eyes. Godwin twitches a bit. Then they let go and stand up and continue with a normal conversation. Zevran had always thought the Fade was a minor part of being a mage, but he can see there’s more to it than he expected.

Morrigan says, “Thank you. I noticed you didn’t have icicle, so I left a copy behind.”

“I appreciate it,” Godwin says, looking like he’s chewing a bit of gristle, perhaps examining the spell.

Morrigan turns to Kit and says, “I need to reprogram a copy, then practice a bit.”

Zevran realizes he hasn’t gotten a chance to brag about the puzzle they discovered in Ostagar, but Kit doesn’t seem to think it’s important, so he shrugs. If program sharing will get them through the Fade, he’s all for it. Morrigan sits cross-legged with her eyes closed for a while, then begins building small electrical walls. They get larger and larger until they match the scale of the one between this realm and Alistair. Only then is Morrigan satisfied.

“What do you think?” she gestures proudly.

“Do we truly need another wall in our way,” Zevran says, puzzled, “or is this practice?”

“No, it’s done,” said Morrigan, irritated. “It’s exactly the opposite of the gates that already exist, so it will cancel their charges.”

“Oh, uh, good?” Zevran says. He’s still not sure what Morrigan means to do with this thing.

“This place is making me twitchy.” Kit says. “Let’s go try it!” She drags Zev and Morrigan behind her to the electrical barrier.

Morrigan sets up her barrier, then pushes it toward the electrical gate. With a final zap between the gate and her spell, the sparks jump to each other, clearing the air of everything but the smell of ozone.

“This spell won’t last long, so we need to go now,” Morrigan says.

“Going,” Kit says, leaping the bottom crackling row of mechanisms keeping the wall at bay. Zev and Morrigan follow, grasping hands as Kit grabs Morrigan’s to go through the door.


	13. Hell of Their Own Making

Kit is surrounded by tall trees. She’s never seen so many in one place. Somehow, though, she thinks trees in the real world don’t fog over, fade out of existence, and shift positions; no matter how many there are.

Alistair calls in the distance, “Kit! Where are you? Wynne?”

Kit calls back, “Alistair! I’m over here! Let’s get out of here!”

But he doesn’t hear. He calls again, hesitantly, “Kit? Wynne?” There is a pause as Kit aims her crew toward his voice. Then Alistair calls even more hesitantly, “Morrigan? Zevran?”

“This way, you idiot!” Morrigan calls.

He must be running further from them. “Where are you?” Then he says, far away and faintly surprised, “Duncan?”

Kit, Zevran, and Morrigan exchange glances and run toward his voice, and when they find him he is not alone. _Really_ not alone. Alistair is surrounded by Grey Wardens. Not one or two spirits posing as friends, like what they defeated in prior realms, but dozens. They’re cheering Alistair’s arrival, sprawled around campfires in a clearing in the dark woods, drinking out of the tankards Kit recognizes from the Ostagar camp.

“Some of these _may_ be scenery, not demons,” Morrigan says hopefully.

Kit looks closer. None of them are generic Grey Wardens. One is big and beardy, another weasely and sly, another turns back to captivating an audience with his tales once he’s toasted Alistair’s return. Somewhere in the camp, there’s a cold crackle of ice nano. Sometimes Kit has to remind herself how much Alistair has lost in a very short time. Today, the Fade is doing that for her.

Alistair doesn’t spot Kit and her crew, staring as he is at Duncan.

“Aren’t you dead?” he says to Duncan. Duncan says something soothing that doesn’t stick in Kit’s memory, gone the moment she hears it, about Weisshaupt and the end of the Blight. “Yes,” Alistair insists, “but I’m pretty sure you’re dead.” Other Grey Wardens wander over, clapping him on the shoulder and insisting the Blight is over.

“Alistair,” Kit calls, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Kit! There you are.” Alistair emerges from the cluster of Grey Wardens. “I’m pretty sure these guys are dead. Are we dead, too?” He seems muddled, confused. Behind him, the Wardens stare at Kit and past her at Zev and Morrigan. Their gazes hold flat challenge, where they’re only fond friendliness when Alistair is looking.

 _No, no, no, we’re going to have to kill the Grey Wardens ourselves._ Kit glances back, and both Zevran and Morrigan have _oh, shit_ faces. Kit remembers the feeling of Leske’s guts spilling over her hands, her sister’s blood pooling at her feet, the look on Zevran’s face when he killed Rinna.

“You ready to go?” Kit says, gambling.

### Alistair POV

“Void, yes. Where are we going? I can’t make heads or tails of this place. Are we dead?” Alistair knows that idea should disturb him more than it does. If he can be dead with the Grey Wardens and now Kit and their companions…

Kit catches his arm and pulls him as close as she can, muttering so the others can’t hear.

“We’re running. Don’t ask questions and don’t look back. Ready?”

Alistair nods. _Like a fairy tale,_ he thinks. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he knows Kit can get him out of whatever trouble he’s found.

“Now! Go!” she shouts at Zev and Morrigan. They are startled enough she and Alistair run past them, but they follow on her heels.

Alistair can hear the Grey Wardens on _their_ heels.

“I wish I could have met them, Alistair, I really do, but this way we don’t have to kill them,” Kit explains conversationally as they ran to the nearest door, in a mound, of all things, coming out of the ground.

“Kill them?!”

“Well, as you said, they’re dead.”

“I did, didn’t I? They’re not real?”

Kit grins at him. “And Morrigan thinks you’re dumb.”

Alistair scoffs and grins back at her. Morrigan trips, but Zev pulls her back up before the Wardens, who are gaining, can reach her.

They reach the door, which Alistair yanks open and holds for Kit, Zevran, and Morrigan. They hold hands in a chain, and Morrigan grabs his hand to pull him through the door, which he pulls after them.

“Wow, you knew a lot of Wardens.” Kit says as Alistair lands on a stone island, gasping to catch his breath.

“They were like family,” Alistair says, head hanging as he leans on his own knees. “A really _big_ family.” He looks around: twisted green light instead of sky, a ring of stone floating in nothing and surrounded by four winged stone islands like the one they’re standing on. They are equidistant from each other, except a large gap right next to his island. There are smaller stones breaking apart there. Alistair keeps trying to look in the center of the ring, and another will diverts his vision around itself in an interesting way. He plays with the force, trying to catch it off-guard or force his eyes to focus there. Nothing works. He’s finally distracted by the sight of another person on the next island over.

“Is that…?” Alistair can see Wynne standing right there. He reaches for her. His arms are long enough, but halfway there, a bolt of lightning jumps from the central ring to his hand. The blast knocks him over.

“Shit,” Kit says. She kneels next to him and feeds him an elfroot potion while Morrigan and Zevran mutter to each other. It’s not until he’s already on his feet that he realizes the potion wasn’t real. _Well, real enough for here. I’m better, aren’t I?_

“I _clearly_ won the bet, _elf,_ ” Morrigan snaps. Their discussion has become an argument. _At least it’s not me for once._

“He knew they were dead!” Zevran says reasonably.

“But he didn’t know it wasn’t real. He played along.”

“So did you!”

“But _I_ knew it was the Fade!”

Alistair raises an eyebrow at Kit. “She knew?” he says.

Kit nods. “That’s not the half of it,” she mutters and twitches her head toward the crumbling rock in the massive gap. “She destroyed her world.” _That used to be her island?_ Alistair is impressed in spite of himself.

“Never mind, you can’t pay here,” says Zevran. “I can collect my two summers after we leave this place.”

“Don’t tempt me to leave you behind, elf.”

He scoffs. “It’s not that much coin.”

Alistair bursts out laughing and wraps an arm around each of them. Zevran jumps and relaxes into his embrace, making faces at Kit, but Morrigan struggles and slips out of his grasp.

“I missed you guys.” He lets Morrigan go. She spins away, pushing against him, disgusted. Alistair gets this weird pang of regret.

“Clearly. Do. Not. _Touch_ me again if you value your hands.”

Alistair throws his head back to laugh. “I was nearly killed by my deceased comrades-in-arms, and now I’m being threatened by a Witch of the Wilds. Good times.” He releases Zevran, who moves away slowly, winking at Kit for some reason. Morrigan sulks. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Morrigan,” Alistair says. “I’d been wandering that damn forest for the longest time when those fake Grey Wardens showed up. You are all a breath of fresh reality. Apologies for offending you, if I have.”

Kit shakes a finger at him, saving the witch the trouble of inventing new snark. “Alistair, stop trying to tempt my lover from me.”

Alistair glances first at Morrigan, then at Zevran, who looks like he’s about to laugh. Or possibly screw them all, but he always looks like that. _He’s screwing Kit. If she’s calling him her lover, they’ll have sex again._

“You’re too pretty by half, but now that he’s copped a feel…” Kit grouses as Zevran grins. Not lewdly, but in a friendly way. Zevran hadn’t done anything worse than sling an arm around his waist and set a hand in the center of his chest.

Everything Alistair knows about two men competing for a woman says Zevran should be posturing, maybe threatening him, mocking up excuses to fight. Instead, Zevran is deflecting in his own way: flirting with him. Whether he’s serious or not doesn’t matter: Alistair’s not interested. The point is: Zevran doesn’t want a confrontation any more than Alistair does.

Alistair can appreciate the practicality. They’ve tough enough odds without infighting over sex, of all things.

Morrigan clears her throat. “Can we focus? We must accomplish one more rescue to get to the center and survive this trial.”

Kit smirks at her and says, “You have a point. Alistair, we need your essential skills to get to Wynne.”

“Hear that?” Alistair says to Morrigan and Zevran. “My skills are essential.”

“You must be so proud,” Morrigan says, rolling her eyes.

### Kit POV

Kit won’t let him try it until he’s convinced.

“This is a trick, isn’t it?” Alistair says suspiciously.

“Of course it’s a trick, but it’s a good trick,” Kit snaps, out of patience. “So fall for it already.” They’d tried several electrical doors, but they can’t get to Wynne. They’re going to have to bash through some metal doors to pull this off.

He sighs, hefting his riot shield and flicking his sword. “Go through it again.”

“The Fade has made you stronger. You can bash through metal doors as if they were tin foil. They’re not tin foil, but you are so strong, they seem that way to you.”

“Am I tougher, too?” he says, grinning.

“Yes, I forgot to tell you that part. You can take a lot more punishment than before without falling.”

“That reminds me,” Godwin says. “I found a book for warriors about how to make the most of your armor. Would you be interested in that?”

“I don’t have time to read a book,” Alistair says, and Kit’s relieved. She’s getting sick of this place, anxious to get out.

“We’re in the Fade, moron,” Morrigan says. “You shall gain knowledge the moment you open the book.”

“I’m not a moron, I just don’t know the Fade like you do,” he says.

“Yes, give him the book,” Kit says to Godwin. “It will show how his knowledge and abilities can increase here.” _Without breaking anything,_ she doesn’t add.

Alistair shrugs, takes the book, and opens it.

“Holy shit!” he says, and Zevran grins on the sidelines. “I know… wow, so much about armor now.” He holds up a finger. “Hold on.” Alistair makes some adjustments with help from Zevran, heedless of the way Zevran is extremely careful not to touch his actual skin.

Zevran joins Kit on the sidelines while Alistair jiggles and hefts his armor, muttering “This would have been handy in school.”

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Kit mutters to Zevran, amused. He smiles deviously.

“Because you don’t seem to mind,” he says, just as low, “and it will make our next encounter more intense if I spend time sexually frustrated.” Zevran smirks at her.

Kit raises her eyebrows. “So close proximity to your other crush is for my benefit? Zevran you’re so sweet!” she says sarcastically.

“Not… entirely,” he chuckles while Alistair starts demanding people try to hit him. The three mages refuse. “It will be intense for me too, Joyela. Also, you are more than a crush to me.”

Zevran collects a pair of Fade-sticks and offers to spar with Alistair if he can find a dull substitute for his sword, saving Kit from responding.

_What exactly does that mean?_

### Wynne POV

There’s a loud crashing noise coming from the basement, but the templars can take care of whatever machinery broke spectacularly enough to make that bending-metal sound. Instead of investigating, Wynne stops by the apprentices’ grooming area. Keili is there, primping her hair.

“I still don’t understand why Varric Tethras is coming to Kinloch!” she says breathlessly. “Not that I’m complaining, but we’re _nowhere_.” 

“He was in the area, apparently. I can only assume he wants to spread his writerly fame as far as possible,” Wynne says.

“This is ridiculous,” says Petra, poking her head in.

“I don’t know, have you read the Viper’s Nest?” Wynne says.

“No,” Petra says, “but he’s here.”

Keili squeals. Wynne is glad to see her so happy. _A little distraction is good after… after…_ Wynne can’t remember and decides it’s not worth the effort with an honored guest arriving.

They meet the dwarf himself in the main lecture hall. Did they walk there? Never mind. Varric looks exactly as he does in his author’s portrait, complete with harem of dwarven women following him. Keili nearly faints. Warden Kit is there, entering through the door opposite with Alistair, Zevran, and Morrigan.

_Warden… Kit? That’s not right…_

A flash of light hits Keili, and she does faint. Or collapse.

The dwarf and his harem are demons. They have used those forms to gain entrance past the templars.

“No!” yells Wynne.

“Oh, shit, and I thought this scene was cute!” Kit says. “Wynne, you are officially fucked up.”

Wynne doesn’t have time to think about why _she’s_ fucked up because demons are attacking. She sets up barriers around the children, but they all get hit and killed anyway. It’s so fast, Wynne can’t process it. _No, they can’t be dead._ Kit’s blades land in a demon, and Zevran attacks the next one over. Wynne’s heart warms, and the downed children move a little. _There’s hope._ Morrigan sets up a lightning barrier between the remaining demons and the children. The demons ignore it, but their nano scatters as they cross through, revealing their chips before they re-form into trilobites and shells with tentacles trailing from them and soft, segmented creatures. _Where are the templars?_ Alistair plows through the segmented demon, scattering it in one hit. Another demon possesses semi-conscious Keili, creating a smaller abomination than the one Wynne fought yesterday. _Yesterday, in Kinloch. Why isn’t it still a mess?_ More demons possess children to make abominations of various sizes, some very small.

“They’re not real, Wynne!” Alistair shouts. “The children are demons, too!”

They must be mistaken. She needs to put an end to this.

“Stop!” Wynne stands between her friends and the abominable children.

“Wynne,” Morrigan says, “those are not abominations, and despite Alistair’s words not even demons. They are spirits, playing with your mind. We’re in the Fade with them, can you not smell it?”

“They’re attacking you!” Kit shouts. “Would they do that, even as abominations?”

Wynne looks back and dodges away from twisted claws.

“I’m faster here,” Kit says as she stabs the child who attacked her.

“Petra!” Wynne wails.

“Petra is safe, Wynne,” Alistair says. He charges in and knocks over another abomination-child. There are a dozen bodies, only 3 left standing.

Alistair knocks the first one into the second, then stabs the last one while Zev and Kit finish off the two that are fallen. Morrigan is standing by Wynne, hands hovering over her shoulders as if to comfort or shake her.

“I’ve failed them!” Wynne wails, and the three they’ve killed stand again as abominations and attack. Two more join them.

“Morrigan, what are you doing?!” Kit yells, stabbing the nearest abomination.

“She’s not listening to me!” Morrigan says, trying to touch Wynne then jumping when Wynne flinches.

“Why should she?” Alistair demands, knocking over an abomination.

“Not helpful, Alistair,” Kit says, using the respite to get away from the fighting, closer to her mages. “Morrigan, switch with me. Keep them off us.”

Kit comes to Wynne. “Wynne, Wynne! Listen to me,” she says. She grabs one shoulder, and Wynne flinches but looks at Kit. Kit shakes her shoulder a little. “We’re in the Fade. They’re alive, waiting for us back at camp,” Kit says. “At the entryway. Petra and the others are protecting the children. Remember? You taught them the barrier spell. They’re still alive, but they won’t be if we don’t get the First Enchanter out in time. We need to get out of the Fade, and we need you to do that. Wynne, they’re alive.”

“You’ve killed them,” Wynne whispers. “I’ve killed them.” But she remembers teaching Petra the barrier spell.

“None of us has it in us to kill innocent children,” Kit reminds her. This rings true. “They are _alive_. Why would I lie about this? I _hate_ false realities.” Kit glances over. More demons have possessed more children, some a decade grown, and this rag-tag team is about to be overwhelmed by a dozen tiny abominations. _I know them from when Kinloch was attacked. How did we end that?_ Wynne can’t remember anything since… meeting the Sloth demon covered in snails. She suddenly remembers a glittering rush of nano covering her eyes.

“They’re alive,” Wynne says. “We’re in the Fade.” She wants to believe it.

“The Fade is lying to you.”

Wynne looks at Kit again and says, “We need to get out of here.” She raises both of her arms, concentrating hard, and the abominations break up and scatter. They shriek as they blend into the Fade.

“Holy shit,” Morrigan says, jaw fallen.

“You tore your world apart,” Kit says, shrugging and checking her weapons. Zevran sends Wynne frankly disturbing looks of admiration quite unlike Morrigan’s surprised awe.

“Yes,” Morrigan explains, “but the world does not have a will of its own. Spirits do. She just… destroyed the will of a dozen others with her own.” Morrigan is grasping the implications as she says it. Hopefully not all of the implications.

“Kinda makes me glad she’s on our side,” Alistair mutters.

“How do you think I avoided possession this long?” Wynne says, and turns to Kit. “What are we facing?”

### Alistair POV

“They still at it?” Alistair asks, plopping down next to Kit to watch the four mages debate the finer points of Fade battle against demons. Spirits.

“Yeah,” Kit says. Zevran is leaning against her shoulder, watching in fascination. “They’ve been going at least twenty minutes, I’d say.”

“The sloth spirit has already overwhelmed all of our wills!” Niall shouts. At least he’s not despondent, but he’s as hopeless as ever.

“It hasn’t had to deal with _this_ , though,” Morrigan counters. Godwin and Wynne look thoughtful. Their talk drops volume enough Alistair can’t hear it again.

“I’m sure they’ll come up with something good,” Zevran says, lifting his head to smile at Alistair. He can’t help but grin at Zevran’s bloodthirsty look.

 


	14. Sloth

The mages don’t explain much to Alistair and his companions, but he never needs to know as much as he wants when it comes to magic. Kit also nods and accepts that they need to ‘overcome the will of the demon in the center’ without much fuss.

“The demon is called Sloth?” Zevran asks. “Where did you get this intel?”

“Four mages in the Fade, and you want to question how we know something?” Morrigan asks.

“I don’t understand where Sloth is,” he insists. 

“In the center,” Wynne reassures him. “Sloth is hiding there. Its realm is invisible, but very real.”

“But how”—

Kit stops Zevran by putting a hand on his arm and says, “It’s a job. Trusting the intel is part of the contract. The reward of the contract is the chance to get out of here alive.”

He opens his mouth, looks around at the mages and Alistair, shuts it, and nods once. “I accept the terms,” he says. Alistair wonders what he saw in their faces.

“All right,” Wynne says. “First step is getting there. Literally. We will step from the Inner Ring to the hidden central realm. We have compromised the support from each realm of the inner ring to the hidden realm, plus Morrigan will cut power to our outer realms just before we take this step.”

“You go out a door,” Godwin explains, “as if you were traveling to your outer realms, but instead you will turn and step into the hidden realm. Morrigan and Wynne will ensure you make that step, while Niall and I support their processing and willpower from the Inner Ring.”

So, Alistair goes with the rest of Kit’s companions to the Inner Ring, Godwin and Niall walking them to the nearest door in a semi-formal goodbye. Standing on the ring looks the same with that empty void in the center still refusing to meet his eye.

“You have to believe we can make it,” Kit says to Alistair and Zevran. “Not forever, but for one step you must believe it absolutely. Do you believe it?”

“Yes,” Alistair says as Zevran says, “Of course, Joyela.”

“Not good enough,” she snaps. “I need to feel your belief. This is the Fade. We can do this! We have four mages on our side! They know we can do this! Do you believe it?” She’s riling them up. Alistair lets her. She’s his hope.

“Yes!” they chorus.

“Do you believe it?!” she shouts.

“Yes!” they shout back at her, and Alistair believes it with all his heart.

“Good!” Kit turns to Wynne. “We’re ready.”

Wynne nods, smiling. “Thank you, Warden,” she says, and Alistair’s heart swells with pride. They’re going to do this, and it’s going to be awesome.

They hold hands, Wynne, Zevran, Kit, Alistair, and Morrigan in a row. Morrigan glances around like a bird or a cat looking at everything, including things Alistair can’t see. It should make him nervous, but it gives him more confidence in her power.

Morrigan gives a vicious smirk, and Alistair feels a drain on his energies cut off. There’s a loud crack of rock behind them, and stone worlds across the Inner Ring break apart.

Wynne does something Alistair can feel as a change in pressure around them, and says, “Ready? And… step.” They all step forward in a long stride, and Alistair closes his eyes against the void before them to imagine their success better.

Rocks tap against Alistair’s leading foot, but Morrigan pushes them out of his way. He doesn’t trip. Alistair’s muscles stretch; Wynne does something to lengthen their stride as Morrigan pulls the inner realm closer. Alistair knows each of them is supported by a mage in the Inner Ring, and he _knows_ they will make it. His back foot leaves the Inner Ring, and still their stride stretches forward. He feels the ache in his legs, but they will make it. Part of him wonders what would happen if they don’t. Lost in formless Fade--? But he cuts off the thought because they _will_ make it.

His front foot lands and he opens his eyes. It’s squishy, and the land glows green where his foot sinks in, then fills with water like a normal swamp. There is a ring of rock the color and texture of the thin ring they were just standing on, but large enough to form a wall around the area. There are five enormous chunks of rock outside the wall, moons floating and crumbling apart. Above them is green sky, and the ground is covered in miniature versions of each realm. Marble floors and little glass slides in maze-formation; trees dense enough to stand on; a marsh with pools like puddles; a scale model of Ostagar but without the darkspawn. This is all set on a mosaic of chiseled-stone flooring, squishy ground, cobblestone roads, dirt infested with full-sized tree roots, white marble, and wooden floorboards, both raw and polished. Sometimes the ground matches up with the correct miniatures, but often it doesn’t. Alistair wonders if it is truly random, or if some Fade algorithm determines the placement of everything.

Nestled in the miniaturized settings are snails of every size and color. Some are as big as Alistair’s fist; others are as tiny as his pinky nail. The snails have conical shells, domed shells, or flatter round shells. They are black, green, red, yellow, white, spotted, mottled, or spirals of different colors together on one shell. Alistair even spots a few blue snails. The snails sometimes leave holes in the scenery that allow the underlying green Fade to shine through, but if Alistair looks away and looks back, he can see the damage healing over.

Kit stomps on a snail, and bits of shell and goo spatter out from under her boot. The snails move with sudden purpose toward the center of the ring as she continues stomping. Zevran joins her, so Alistair does the same. The mages just wait, staves out. Well, crushing snails makes him feel better, at least.

The snails, no longer feeding, leave slime trails in their wake. They pile onto each other to form larger blobs that move faster, amoeba-like. As these blobs join together and form larger blobs, they develop scurrying legs, allowing even faster movement. They pile in the center of the room. From this pile emerges the Sloth demon: a man-shaped pile of snails shifting over and around each other. That’s not to say it looks exactly like a man. Every snail is proportional to the body part it’s representing. To turn around and face them, the snails shift in relation to each other, revealing other snails beneath. The result is almost person-like movement, but with weird rippling. As in the real world, Sloth’s eyes are covered by two black, round snails.

“Very good,” Sloth says. “you have met me. I appreciate the devotion. Now it is time for you to take a well-deserved nap.” Alistair feels very tired, but he feels a countering change in pressure at his back: Wynne. He wills his eyelids to stay open this time, knows his teammates will do the same.

“Fuck you,” Kit says. _Great with words, our Kit._ Alistair shakes his head, distracted from his exhaustion.

“Here’s the thing,” Sloth says, gliding around the area, leaving little mechanisms behind. “You’re acting against the interest of mages. It’s what comes of acting too hastily.” Its words stretch and slow hypnotically. “You’ve been working very hard, but you need to realize your work is doing more harm than good.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kit says. Kit’s like a jolt of caffeine. He can fight, if it comes to that, like he did in Wynne’s realm.

“How many people have you killed getting this far?” Sloth insists. “That mage in the second Kinloch he’d built for himself. All those mages in the first Kinloch. The abominations. The templars in service to the spirit of desire. The _spirits._ All of them could have been useful in the fight against the Chantry, but you wasted them.”

“Fight against the Chantry?” Alistair says. “Are you listening to yourself?”

“Are you?” Sloth says, flicking its blank gaze to Alistair as it steps around the room. Those whiteless spiral eyes are so creepy, so like darkspawn eyes. “The Chantry holds the nano pilots back. Keeps them from studying powerful processes. Mages could be truly incredible, like in Tevinter, but these limits are too much.” Sloth turns to Morrigan. “You know what I’m talking about,” it says.

Sloth bends to tug on the Tower of Ishal in the miniature Ostagar. It seems larger than it was a moment ago. Its top flips open, a trap door in the Fade. Sloth pulls another mechanism out of it, sets it down. Kit cranes to look at these little machines without stepping.

“These mages allow themselves to be corralled in this Tower, you say to yourself,” Sloth continues to Morrigan in that calming voice, “but _these_ mages break their cages, break free of the Templar Order and the Chantry.”

“They are siding with Loghain to do it,” Wynne says. “Traitor to the King _and_ the Grey Wardens.”

“Loghain never allied against the Wardens,” Sloth says, “but that is not the point. Loghain saw a hopeless situation. It’s part of his strength, seeing things as no one else can. It’s easy to forgive. He regretted not getting the King out, but it was better to preserve his troops to fight the darkspawn at an advantage in the next battle than lose everyone.” Alistair knows that’s not true. Loghain’s actions led to Duncan’s death, to Cailan’s… Alistair’s resolve hardens, his awareness sharpens. He’s ready to take this thing down at Kit’s word.

“We need the mages,” Kit says, “to end the Blight. The demons and abominations in the Tower are killing them. Who set those free? Uldred.”

 _Why are we arguing?_ Alistair thinks. _Let’s get out of here._

“A regrettable accident, a demonstration that sometimes unconsidered action is the worst. You could fight against the templars with Uldred, and by the time you find the Archdemon, he would be more powerful than you can imagine. You would have to do,” Sloth shrugs, “hardly anything. Uldred would destroy your enemies, if you let him.”

“And then what, hm?” Zevran says. “He would bow aside, let the teyrns determine the next Ruler of Ferelden? I think not, my friend. He would take over this country, and the Fereldens would either thank him for it or fear his wrath and not oppose him. Much better to catch him now, when he is beleaguered, than to face him once his magical and political power is consolidated.”

“I would rather not fight you,” Sloth says in a reasonable tone. Alistair knows they must fight.

“Let us go, and you won’t have to,” says Wynne. _Why are they still talking to this demon?_ But Wynne gets out her staff again, which she’d put away to make the step here.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I’ve grown accustomed to my power. When I defeat you, Uldred will feed me his enemies, without my doing anything more. The entire Hold will store those whose processing I’m using. Once I have access to the larger Fade, I will find better ways of keeping people hopeless, content, indolent.” Sloth’s snails swell, making him grow a head taller. “A small effort now will pay in decades of leisure.”

Morrigan laughs and says, “You are wrong, spirit. Leisure and laziness are not the same thing, I can assure you!” She takes her staff off her back, moving into a battle pose.

Kit points at the Sloth demon. “You’re creepy,” she says. She points at its traps. “Those are cool. Where did you get those?”

Sloth smiles and casts a spell while another half-dozen snails fall off it and pull open a door in the floor that wasn’t there before. A tiny robot crawls out and to Kit. She moves back, curious but cautious, but the robot stops short of her… then explodes.

Wynne steps forward, concentrating and stretching a hand out to Sloth, who loses a few snails, which dissolve into the Fade. Then it rallies, apparently having determined exactly how much effort it would take to overcome her will.

They should know. This spirit has spent days building its power by tapping directly on the imaginations of multiple people. It turns the spell back on Wynne, who screams loud for an old woman, twitching in place. To think that one mage, no matter how strong, could defeat Sloth’s will would have been hubris.

That’s not what they had done. Alistair triggers his EMP device, and a wave of nano cancellation bursts out from his hands. At the same time, Kit and Zevran stab into Sloth with three daggers and an ax from behind, where they had been slipping into position while Sloth was focused on Wynne. The first layer of snails closest to Alistair is stripped away, dissolved into the Fade, and Sloth’s scream replaces Wynne’s, rending the air. Alistair glances back, and Wynne has a satisfied air as she casts her real spell. Morrigan waves her arms, and Sloth’s devices are swallowed again by the patchwork land.

Sloth melts and squirms, shells shattering as Kit and Zev hack and slash their way through his body. Alistair crosses the room and manages to get one stab in while Morrigan and Wynne send little bursts of nano to damage Sloth from a distance.

As it dissolves, a few snails open a trap door between Kit and Zev and slip through.

“Stop the snails!” yells Alistair, though he has no idea how they might do such a thing.

“No, no, no, no! Stop it!” Morrigan echoes.

The trap door flips closed. Kit grabs a tiny building to pry it open again, but the makeshift handle crumbles. The door seals Sloth within.

“New form, but we will be stronger than it,” Wynne says, and Alistair decides not to question her.

The ground under Alistair’s feet rumbles and shifts. He runs a few steps, then turns to watch the demon re-form. Light stone discs buried in the ground rise and stack under each other, pushing a swelling nodule up higher. It gets about a half-head taller than Alistair when nodule reaches the size of a beach ball. The nodule suddenly bursts forth with beautiful red fronds like loosely-structured feathers or intricate leaves, wrapping around Kit and Zevran. _Shit._ The stalk exudes flesh from between its discs, becoming as thick and flexible as the trunk of a young willow. Wynne shoots a stone fist at the trunk, avoiding Kit and Zevran, but it ricochets off a thick layer of mucus Alistair hadn’t seen.

“I’m faster and deadlier than you will ever be,” Kit shouts. She uses her axe to chop the fronds but gets tangled in them. It lifts her off her feet.

“A little help here?” she shouts as Alistair tries to find an opening.

Then the crinoid casts fire blast.

Alistair ducks behind his shield, but Kit and Zevran are screaming. Alistair slams into the stalk to interrupt the spell. Wynne casts heal almost immediately. The smell of cooked flesh lingers in the air.

Zevran wriggles out and lunges low, quickly, carefully cutting off the fronds holding Kit. He dances back to avoid getting entangled again while Alistair drags Kit away from the demon.

Morrigan casts Winter’s Grasp on it, freezing it in place, and Wynne slams into it with another Stone Fist. The shattering removes the rest of its fronds, and Alistair pulls his gun, using his shield to steady his aim and protect himself from the flopping fronds. He lets intuition guide his aim and shoots the exposed core.

One of the fronds scrambles away like a haunted toupee, opening yet another trap door in the ground. Zevran catches it by the cut end, but it tears out of his grip and escapes into the hatch.

“Brasca!” he swears, shaking his hand.

“We are more powerful,” Wynne says, healing him lavishly. “It is weakened.”

“We are stronger,” Kit says with complete confidence and a bloodthirsty grin. “It’s going down.” Alistair finds that grin reassuring anymore.

The third form is a humanoid chunk of stone that stands, tiny walls and trees and buildings sloughing off the back of the golem. Morrigan catches it in an electrical net, giving Wynne time to heal Kit. As soon as the electrical spell ends, Kit leaps onto the golem’s back.

 _Shing!_ The chime of metal on stone echoes off the round wall, and nothing goes in. It doesn’t matter, they will win.

Kit leaps back, circling as it tries to face her, and says, “I’m stronger. I’m faster, and I’m stronger by the minute.” This time when she jumps on its back and thrusts her blade, it sinks into the Golem, doing damage. “I’m stronger,” Kit confirms and pulls it back out. _Shouldn’t be able to –_ Alistair cuts his thought off, charging instead while Kit grips the golem’s arm with her knees, like a kid climbing a tree. Wynne casts something invisible on the golem. As Alistair slams into its chest, Kit grabs tighter, draws her glass knife, and plunges it behind the rock head. _Do more,_ Alistair tells himself and the blade. _Win._ The blade buzzes as she shoves it in, vibrating. The golem shudders. Alistair slams into it again, and Kit’s glass blade shatters while she jumps clear before the walking statue collapses into the floor. It tries to stand again, but Wynne freezes it. Zevran leaps onto the back, slips once, then slides his blades into the golem below him. He grins at Kit as he leaps off. Kit smirks back at him, drops her axe, and grabs his head into a fierce kiss.

Something breaks in Alistair’s chest, but to his surprise it floods him with joy. Kit looks so alive: Zevran is clearly good for her.

Alistair grins and whistles and calls, “Go for it, Kit!”

Kit grins around at them, allowing Zevran to stand fully again. He looks a bit breathless, and Alistair can’t help but be a bit envious of that, but Kit is absolutely radiant and Alistair can’t begrudge her a little joy. He glances at the mages. Morrigan looks like she might throw up again, and Wynne looks surprised.

“I hate to spoil the party,” Alistair says to stop her from saying anything against the pair, “but do we know snail man isn’t coming back?” He pokes a rock where it fell. Unlike the other forms, this one isn’t dissolving into the Fade and pieces of it aren’t scurrying away.

“It’s done,” Morrigan says, seeming glad enough for the distraction. “That won’t be moving again.”

“I never did like escargot,” Alistair says.

“How very Ferelden of you, my friend,” Zev says.

Wynne says, “What is escargot?”

“It is an Orlesian recipe for snails,” Zev supplies.

Morrigan snorts. “Figures. Templars get delicacies when mages do not.”

“You never know when you’ll be dining with an Arl…” Alistair says, even though he’d never had snails during training. Morrigan doesn’t need to know that.

“And is the same not true for mages? They are assigned to posts with nobility, are they not?”

Alistair just shrugs and looks around. “How do we get to our bodies? I don’t see the doors.”

“Let’s check around first,” Kit says. “Morrigan, I’m curious about those clever little devices Sloth set out. They look like they could work in the real world, and I’d wager Sloth found plans. Could they be around somewhere?”

Morrigan waves her arms, and a device sort of burps out of the ground. Kit examines it carefully and disarms it. Then she picks it up, and her eyes glaze over for a moment. She looks like Morrigan did in the café, focused internally rather than on the world around her.

“Wicked,” Kit says. “That’s precise materials for springs and explosives with proportions and alloys. I even understand why! Morrigan, what just happened?”

Morrigan waves her arms to uncover the others, studies Kit, and says, “Info dump? Like Alistair’s book?”

“That fits.” Kit nods, still thinking.

“What was it like for you?” Alistair asks.

“There was a kind of chime in my head that sounded like glass cracking. I never use the word ‘wicked,’ that was from the designer as well.”

Morrigan’s eyebrows are in her hairline. “I’m surprised at the dedicated laziness. Most pilots would separate the object from its plan. If nothing else, the plan won’t be lost if the device is destroyed.”

“Maybe it had copies?”

“That’s as much effort as making a separate one. Let me ensure you didn’t acquire a virus.”

Kit allows her to check, then says, “I like this info, and I can put it to good use. All right if I try the others?”

Morrigan shrugs. “It’s a little risky but probably worth it.”

Wynne chimes in, “I can check each one before you touch it.” To Alistair and Zevran, she says, “In the mean time, I recommend keeping your hands to yourself.”

Zevran makes a disappointed noise. Kit tilts her head at him.

“I know machines and could make something new by combining plans. However, I’ll teach you if you like.”

“Kit,” Alistair says laughing, “you’re offering to teach? I thought you cause all students to run screaming?”

“Crying, Alistair,” Kit corrects him. “My students cry. I don’t think it will be a problem.”

Zevran is blushing furiously. Alistair doesn’t know what not-crying has to do with, um, anything embarrassing, but he’ll let it slide.

Zevran waves graciously and says, “All yours, Joyela.”

She turns to ask Morrigan, “Do I have to examine them first, like I did with this one, or can I just pick them up?”

Morrigan considers. “I think the examination helped your mind. Also, practice accessing it for a few minutes if you don’t want to lose it, plus at least daily after that for perhaps a month.”

“Access? Like think about it? Which parts?”

“Anything you don’t want to lose,” Morrigan says as Wynne goes to the other traps and examines each one. After Wynne nods at each, Kit examines them and picks them up, muttering about each mechanical component, the cheap vs. quality options, and once gasps in surprise about an entire suite of data about the springs in various materials and strengths, with data on the performance, strength, speed, sensitivity, launch capability, and price for every variant on the spring. Morrigan and Wynne assure her that the pricing information is outdated by decades if not centuries. Alistair, for his part, is fascinated watching someone else learn in the Fade the way he did.

Morrigan searches Sloth’s body until she finds a key while Wynne and Kit finish up. The key fits a large stone door Alistair hadn’t noticed before but is obvious now. They walk through it to Niall’s realm, which is holding together. Alistair sort of expected it would crumble and they would all have to run for it once the Sloth demon was gone. Instead, everything has sharpened, no longer hazy at the edges of his vision.

 


	15. Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not as sexy as the title implies… until it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, a second reason the Orzammar Mining Company hates nano.

Morrigan winces when Kit says “Come with us!” to Niall. Clearly, Kit hasn’t realized that Niall’s body must be one of the fleshy blobs in the room where the Sloth demon appeared.

“Ah, no,” Niall says, avoiding eye contact with everyone. “I’m pretty sure… Well. Destroy my body so other spirits can’t use it. Get the Litany of Adralla first. You haven’t been in the Fade long, so your bodies won’t have been repurposed yet.”

“It should be easy enough to get back into our bodies, now that the spirit isn’t blocking us,” Morrigan says to cover Kit’s appalled look.

“I trust that you will limit the rules we’ve made to this section of the Fade?” Wynne asks. “I have no doubt the templars will reconnect the Circle’s FadeNet servers once we are successful.”

Godwin nods. “We’ve been working on it since Warden Kit brought me to Niall. We just need to debug before launch. Would you look over the code?” He holds a FadeScreen out to Wynne.

From his wistful tone of voice, Morrigan guesses Wynne checked code when they were learning. This will be the last time.

“I can glance through it, but we are in a hurry,” Wynne says with pity and regret.

“This part then,” Godwin says, handing her the FadeScreen. “Apparently she can wish doors to lead anywhere.” Kit shrugs.

While Wynne checks code, Kit asks Morrigan: “How do we return to our bodies?” Morrigan realizes this is something non-pilots are never taught when Alistair and Zevran show interest, too.

“Normally simply wishing to leave is enough, but the demon blocked us. With the rules you invented to counter the demon, we shall use a door,” Morrigan says.

Wynne hugs Niall and Godwin, shedding a few tears. Alistair nods to them. Morrigan never knew them, but she feels honored in spite of herself, like she’s attending a particularly touching funeral of someone she’d never met when they were alive.

Alive or dead, Niall and Godwin wish them well and even smile as the crew follows Kit through the door of Niall’s storage shed.

### Kit POV

Kit lands in her true body like a sack of potatoes, heavy and lumpy. She hears an internal Fade-scream in her own distorted voice, but she can’t speak as the nano helmet dissolves around her head, falling in a dusty pile onto the floor and into her clothing. Her skin stings where nano had contacted her. She keeps her eyes closed until it settles, but she spits metallic dust.

“I will never get this feeling out of my throat,” Alistair says, coughing and gasping, spit full of swirling metal flecks. He’s gagging more than anyone else.

He’s covered in glitter. They all are, but it’s especially thick in their hair. Kit sits up, leans back, and shakes her hair with both hands. She hears it _shush_ behind her like falling glass dust. Morrigan does the same over her staff, but it’s well imbedded in her dreadlocks. She changes something about her staff and runs the recovery port along each dread, and it draws the material greedily. Her hair is surprisingly long, falling well past her shoulders. Alistair is fascinated, but looks away before Morrigan can notice. Kit catches Zevran’s eye at that, and they exchange a smirk. Wynne is shaking out her shorter hair, staring as Kit shoves her weapons into their sheathes. Zev isn’t bothering with shaking out his long hair but is staring openly at Kit instead. Kit realizes they all are, stopping their own activities.

“What?” Kit’s face itches right in front of her ear. “Why are you all”—Kit scratches her itch, but it hurts. Kit’s entire scalp, eyes, ears, and down her back burn like she’s been standing too close to a forge. “Does anyone else feel like their face is on fire?”

That gets Zev and Alistair moving.

“There’s a bath in the last room we went through!” Morrigan calls, grabbing her staff and heading that way.

“What the fuck, guys?” Kit exclaims as Zev and Alistair each grip under a knee and an armpit and lift her bodily from the floor.

“An allergy, maybe? To the nano? I’ve never seen one so serious,” frets Wynne, following behind.

“Should we use nanites to heal it?” Zevran asks doubtfully.

“No!” Wynne says. “That wouldn’t do anything; the nanites would damage as they heal.”

“Why didn’t she have this before?” Morrigan says as they approach the tub she is drawing water to. “She helps me all the time getting nano into my staff.”

Kit’s getting tired of being talked about.

“She was covered in it for hours. Her skin had a lot of time to reject it,” Wynne guesses authoritatively. Or maybe she really knows. It sounds good, anyway.

“Put me down!” Kit says. “I’m not on fire. Don’t you dare chuck me in a tub like dirty laundry.”

They set her down gently next to a human-sized enameled tub framed in sterile white tiles. The edge of the thing is midway up her chest.

“Okay, I might actually need a boost up,” she allows.

Morrigan says, “Get your hair under the flowing water. Hopefully it will wash out most of the nanites.”

They get a chair for Kit to stand on so she can lean far enough to get her hair under the tap. Morrigan moves to the other side to help work nanomaterial out of her hair. When Kit blinks her eyes open, the water has turned to quicksilver roiling down the drain. Kit hears another tap start; Wynne is washing out her hair, too.

“As excellent as this view is,” Zev says from behind her, “perhaps we should all do the same. There are four tubs.” 

Alistair grunts his agreement, and two more taps turn on.

“You need a turn?” Kit asks.

“Of course I do, but I don’t react to nano like this. I can wait. Your skin can’t.” Morrigan doesn’t sound concerned. She’s just stating the facts.

“Thanks,” Kit grunts anyway.

Morrigan and Kit get most of the dead nano out of her hair, leaving only a sparse sparkle running through it. It doesn’t stop the skin, reddened and bumpy like the worst adolescent breakout, from hurting, itching, and burning whenever Kit touches it, but at least it won’t get worse. They work together to get Morrigan’s hair cleaned out, Kit directing the water before it touches nano.

Once they’ve all finished cleaning out their hair – Zevran is particularly vigorous about his, not even leaving the frosted glimmer the rest of them have – they return to the room that once had the Sloth abomination in it, and look for anything useful.

Niall had spoken of recovering the Litany of Adralla from his body, but there are only dissolving masses of fleshy nano, smelling of week-old nug meat. Kit finds scraps of robes in one pod and templar armor pieces in another. There are some summers. Searching the three fleshy nodes with robes, all she finds is a slim device with a speaker on one side and play/stop on the other.

“Where is it?” Kit asks desperately.

“What are you looking for?” Wynne asks, puzzled.

“The Litany of Adralla,” Kit answers.

Wynne nods at the device. “You have it in your hand.”

“This is the Litany of Adralla?” Kit asks. Zevran holds out a hand, and Kit hands it to him.

“A Fade Player with built-in speakers?” Alistair asks, peering over his shoulder.

“No, it’s not connected to the Fade,” Wynne says. “It’s been programmed with a sound pattern that de-activates blood nanites. It cannot be corrupted because it’s hard-coded.”

Alistair says “Can we listen to it?” with a nervous glance at Morrigan.

“Whatever you believe, Alistair, I am not using blood nanites.” She wiggles her fingers at him. “Ooooo.” She taunts. He rolls his eyes.

Zevran hits play, cutting their argument short. It’s a disjointed song, a few seconds long, no proper intervals in the notes. It loops a few times, then stops. Zevran shrugs and hands it to Alistair.

“Fancy. Let’s get back to camp,” Kit says, getting an idea.

“Warden,” Wynne says sharply. “We cannot delay. We must confront Uldred.”

“No,” Kit says slowly, checking her idea. It’s a good one. “We must _defeat_ Uldred. We need food and rest.”

“He can rebuild this trap if we do that!” Wynne objects.

“How?” Kit demands.

“More nano, more devices. More _victims_.” Wynne is frantic, weirdly so after a week of slow progress up the Tower. Maybe Wynne’s reached her limit of tolerance for this mess.

“No,” Kit says, hoping her tone is reassuring. “We’ve been picking at his defenses for days now, and he never expands beyond our work more than a demon or two. He’s got limited materials and personnel. If we take the raw materials with us, we can return today and be at our best without risk.” Kit smirks, trying to hide her eagerness. “Besides, I have those new trap plans. Uldred won’t see that coming.”

“We need more metal,” Zevran says. Kit nods and pulls the stupid, metal templar armor out of its fleshy pod.

“This will be perfect,” she says.

### sexy times

On the way to camp, Zevran is caught looking at Kit several times.

Once they get there, Morrigan snags him to continue their discussion about the bet regarding whether Alistair would recognize he was in the Fade. Kit comes over with a jar of unguent from Wynne.

They’re sitting at the cookpot. A half-dozen kids and Petra are also there. The kids had been incredibly worried when no one returned last night, but now they are listening, rapt, as Zevran and Morrigan debate who won their bet. Zevran knows all too well the lesson in bargaining the kids are getting, as they decide Morrigan owes Zevran one summer, but not two. She pays, then excuses herself.

“It was really dumb luck that I won anything,” Zevran says, grinning at Kit. “I was tired of her underestimation of everyone around her.”

“The impassioned way you argued suggests otherwise.”

Zevran grins. “No point in losing more summers than I must, no?”

“No,” Kit agrees, “I suppose not.” She squeezes his knee and hands him the unguent. “Would you be willing to put this on my back? It feels like there was nano there, too, and I can’t reach it.”

“Of course, Joyela. Might I ask something in return?”

Kit smirks in a dirty way. “Depends what it is.”

“Just a kiss.”

“Of course,” she replies, and grabs his head. As she kisses him hard, he very carefully lays his hands on her shoulders, then slides them down to her hips, careful to avoid the spine.

The kids squeal and “Oooooh!” obnoxiously.

“I had thought – in private, but, ah, I have no objection.” He is short of breath and probably failing at playing it cool.

Kit scoffs. “You thought I wanted to keep us secret, maybe? I’m not that kind of girl,” she says low and sultry.

Zevran chuckles low, putting on a bit of a show for the kids. “I like it.”

As Kit pulls away, the kids are staring. “What’s wrong, never seen a kiss before?” she asks. They giggle.

Petra is frowning. “As a matter of fact, they haven’t. We keep affections _private_.”

“Well, they’ve learned something new. Come on, Zev, I can’t imagine Ms. Priss will be happy if I take my shirt off in front of her kiddos.”

“Well, actually”—Petra starts, but Kit drags him off before she can get any further.

“Excuse us,” Zevran mutters through his public smile. They head for Kit’s sleeping area, ducking behind the canvas curtain.

Kit sits on her pallet, removing her armor and putting it on her stand. “Petra’s not really in a Circle anymore. It’s chaos, a broken circle at best.” More nano shakes out of her armor. Kit takes off her boots at the same time as Zev, who sets his boots outside the canvas as a courtesy. She removes her shirt. For the first time, Zev sees her true naked skin smooth and delectable, traced with scars. Her arm muscles ripple.

“I think I dreamed of this once,” he murmurs. Zev remembers how tight she grips with those arms – and her legs, still covered by armor and loose cargo pants.

Zevran swallows and focuses on the line of red tracing from her bright-red scalp under the white hair to where the line disappears into her pants. He chuckles.

“What?” Kit says softly, trusting it won’t be too bad.

Zev grins. “I find it amusing that the Big Bad Warden has sensitive skin.”

“I will cut you,” Kit jokes.

“I love it when you threaten my life.”

“I’ve noticed,” Kit huffs, flopping face-down on her pallet. She rests her chin on her hands. “Why is that? I mean, besides that I obviously don’t mean it.”

Zevran shrugs. “I’ve always been drawn to danger. In the Crows, I used that attraction to do my work.” Zevran starts at her neck, massaging as he works the cream into the skin. Kit hums appreciatively. “Their work,” he corrects himself bitterly. “When I became my own man, I discovered I’d rather be…” He thought he would rather be dead, but no, the truth is lying in front of him. “…yours.” Perhaps he can make it up to Rinna by protecting Kit. He scoops out a glop and smooths it down her spine gently, leaving small globs of cream on the way. He slows more and more as his hand approaches her belt.

Kit lifts her hips a little to undo her pants and slides them halfway down her ass. Dear Maker, the nanites followed the whole spine, which is both horrible and delightful for how far his fingers have the opportunity to trace.

“Some nano must be in your pants,” Zev murmurs in her ear. “You’d better take them off before your reaction gets more severe.”

Kit groans and says, “Are you objecting to a reaction in my pants?” but she removes them. “You seem overdressed for the occasion. Don’t you want to get rid of that pesky nano?” Zevran is still almost entirely dressed, and she is down to her underwear.

“The nano I don’t care about,” he says. “The clothes could go, though.” Zev removes his armor, slowing when Kit turns to watch.

“Tease,” she laughs.

“Do you not want to be teased?” Zevran asks, pausing. At her sour expression, he smiles and slides his shirt off.

“Only a little,” she says as she rakes her gaze over his body, pausing at the zipper of his jeans and licking her lips.

Zev reaches for those next.

He unfastens them, slides his jeans over his hips. Then he sits on the edge of her makeshift pallet of cushions and blankets, and tries to concentrate on taking them off as she pounces on his back, caressing and licking and nibbling.

“You are going to drive me crazy.”

“That’s the idea.” Kit confirms, reaching to his chest under his arms. Zevran sucks a breath as she grazes his nipples. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed that before,” she mutters in his ear as he frees his right foot. As the pants bunch around his left, she flicks one, and he hisses. “Where do you feel that?” Her tone tells him she’s guessed but wants to hear him say it. He frees the left leg, leaving him completely naked and at her mercy.

“I feel it – hsssst – I feel it in my balls,” he tells her as he leans back into her, forgetting his discarded clothing.

“Mmm… good.” Kit says behind him, hooking her knees over his hips, calves on his inner thighs, and supporting him. He reaches back to grip her legs, but she has total access to him, her ear pressed against his back and her hands on his front, teasing and tantalizing. She runs the rough grips of her fingers over his nipples, and he squirms. Her hands trail down but graze over his thighs to hers.

He moans his frustration. “Now who’s the tease?”

“Don’t you want to be teased?” Kit murmurs and runs her nails on the outside of his legs, from knees to ass.

“Oh, fuck yes,” he moans, answering and begging for more. She hums. Her breasts are pressed against his back. He squirms against her and tries to turn, but she won’t let him. “I want to touch you. Please,” he asks.

“Not yet,” she admonishes. She finds the cream, then settles with one hand splayed across his stomach to steady him. He tenses in anticipation as she dips her fingers into the jar. He moans as her slick hand wraps around his cock, stroking slowly. Her other hand pulls him close against her body, wrapped over his chest, which starts heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

“I won’t last long like this,” he warns.

She releases him with arms and legs both. “Okay. I want you to lick me, Zevran. Then we’ll find your release.”

She can’t lay on her back, but he reassures her he’d be happy to pleasure her from his back. She gives him room, but he goes after her neck instead of laying down.   

“Zevran,” she pants with a hint of warning.

“Don’t worry, Joyela, I’ll do as you ask. I just want to taste more of you first.”

Kit groans and squirms against him. He slides down, licks her entire breast, catches her nipple gently between his teeth, switches to the other and gives that one the same treatment.

“Oh, ungh.” Kit’s hips twitch forward, and he steadies her and takes that as encouragement.

He runs his hands down her front and dips his fingers between her outer labia to her clit. It is moist already. He hums appreciatively, then catches Kit’s gaze as he raises his fingers to his lips and tastes them with a long tongue, treating his fingers like a spoon for the sweetest desert he’s eaten. Kit moans, her eyelids drooping with lust. He pulls away and lays down so she can straddle his face. He starts with skill, but her reflexive thrusts mean he only needs to hold his tongue still and moan to keep her rubbing against him. They’re feeding off each other, like they did in the Fade, spiraling into lust.

He taps her thigh. “I’ve a suggestion,” he says and pushes gently to turn her.

Kit catches on before he explains. She turns around above him, grabs his hands, and slides them up her own body, pressing his fighting calluses over her skin. He grabs her ample hips and pulls her cunt down onto his outstretched tongue again. He moans and pulls her hips into the sliding thrusts along his tongue.

She leans forward to trace his tattoos, which have become sensitive because of fascinated caresses like this. Suddenly, he isn’t just fucking Kit with his mouth, but every lover he’s had – living and dead – is in the bed with them, touching him, admiring Kit, savoring her moans, rating the hunger with which he devours her juices. He welcomes his ghosts, imagining them as an audience watching him give her pleasure. Then Kit falls forward and licks the length of his cock, takes it into her mouth, and his entire universe becomes her touch, her scent, her taste. He muffles his cries in her, and soon she cums hard. He is careful to run his nails anywhere but her spine as his hips thrust uncontrollably into her mouth. Kit pins his hips down and pleasure overtakes him: a sweet, bright glow intensifies and becomes everything he knows for moments. She sucks him through his orgasm, then collapses over him when he stops moving, ass below his chin, cheek pressed against his inner thigh, panting.

Once Kit catches her breath, she flops gracelessly next to him, hisses from the sheets on her rash, kisses him on the mouth to let their flavors mingle, and then drapes herself against his side. He grunts softly as he tries to figure out where to put his hands but settles the one she is laying on in her hair and the other on her leg, which is wrapped over his hips.

“Joyela, you are amazing.”

“What does that mean?” Kit mumbles. The most vicious creature he’d ever met is jelly in his arms, mumbling her demands.

“It means I had fun,” he teases.

She lifts her head and taps him stingingly on the shoulder. “No, idiot,” she says. “What does ‘Joyela’ mean? You called me that when we met.”

Zevran shrugs internally. “Jewel,” he whispers into her hair. “You are a precious jewel.”

Kit huffs. “Right. You haven’t seen me without my makeup.”

Zevran’s hands tighten in her hair, on her hip. “You don’t know?”

“You joker. Gutter trash like me?”

Zevran buries his face in her hair, pulling her tighter but mindful of the rash. “Don’t ever call my lover gutter trash,” he murmurs to her. “You deserve so much better, and I hope you know it.” Zevran breathes in the scent of the wash she uses in her hair, dead metal tickling his nose. His breath heaves again. “I will make you believe it,” he says quietly.

“Zevran? Zevran, you okay?”

He’s _fine_. “You are beautiful, you are precious, and no one will say otherwise. Not even you,” he says.

###

“Warden, we must hurry,” Wynne says again. _Why isn’t Kit listening?_

“I’m trying, Wynne,” Kit says. “Why not talk with the kids? Or better, one of your Tranquil can show me how to fix the metal shredder”—Kit’s muttering is cut short by the screech of metal torn apart. Everyone around jumps, and several children shriek in another part of the camp. “I fixed it!” Kit shouts, elated. “It fucking works!”

Kit’s swearing loud enough for the children to hear, but Wynne doesn’t even care. She glances toward the door that leads, eventually, to the Harrowing Chamber. Toward the end of this, one way or another.

“Wynne,” Kit says low and serious enough to get her attention. “I’m doing everything I can to ensure victory for the safety for everyone in this room.”

Wynne realizes that it’s true. She’s getting tools for the fight ahead, checking on everyone. Even Kit’s dalliance with Zevran could be seen as making sure they’re both at their best for this fight. This former Carta thug wants to survive, but it’s more than that.

Wynne nods and says, “You care about preserving what we’ve saved.”

Kit nods. “I’d rather not throw myself on a pyre to make the Rite of Annulment easier.”

Wynne flinches. That’s exactly what rushing in unprepared would have done. Weakened the opposition and made it easier for the templars to destroy everything.

“I shouldn’t have said it like that,” Kit says, and Wynne is more sure than ever that she does care about the Circle.

“It’s true, Warden,” Wynne admits. “I hope we find more to preserve in the Harrowing Chamber.”

Kit turns back to her metal scraps and says, “Me too.” She glances up, looking serious. “Your people are going to help us end the Blight, remember?”

While Wynne tries to figure out whether Kit is joking, Kit feeds the fresh metal shreds into the metal shaper.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m taking votes on what to name Dog in a hypothetical future Orzammar work. I like the fan-favorite Barkspawn, but my in-game name for Kit’s Dog was Chip, Pebbles, Spall, something like that. (Her save was lost in a tragic memory accident.) Come yell at me on Twitter @Starla-Nell or in the comments below.


	16. Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations with Cullen & Uldred

Alistair’s had about as much as he can take of familiar faces.

“The hell is this.” Kit says, blades strapped to her back and belt jangling with traps.

There’s a very thin layer of nano forming a glittering bubble around Cullen in traditional armor. It makes Alistair even more self-conscious of his biker gear than usual. The sword emblem fused on his chest protector echoes the sword discarded on the ground with his shield and gun. He’s on one knee, praying silently but fervently. There’s no helmet.

Alistair freezes in his tracks, then picks up again, a pace behind everyone else. If Cullen were to recognize him, he’s not sure he would have the strength for the coming battle.

“What’s this? Another trick?” Cullen’s voice is desperate.

 _That could have been me._ This thought should have occurred to Alistair every time they encountered templars, but Alistair had never identified with the uniform, and most wore the helmet. Unlike Wynne and her students, Alistair never knew which former classmates he was killing. But Cullen never wore a helmet. Said it messed with his ability to track things on the battlefield, but Alistair had seen the man tear off a standard helmet with panic and shame mixing in his eyes.

“That’s what I was thinking. Is this some sort of bait-and-switch?” Kit says in that wry tone of hers.

“If it is real,” Zev points out, “he’s been suffering. Isolation, torture.”

Not complete isolation. Alistair manages to stop himself from identifying the bodies with Cullen in the shimmering nanobot shell-shield.

“Cullen,” Wynne, “we’re here to help.”

“I’ll not fall for that trick again! Digging around in my mind; the charge I would most trust, one I haven’t seen die. It’s perfect.” Cullen’s rocking again, but instead of praying he mutters, “It’s perfect,” again.

“Bravo, pilot,” Morrigan says to Wynne, “you’ve earned the trust of your jailers. Now, what will you do with it I wonder?”

“Morrigan, you can shut up now,” Kit says.

“Thank you, Warden,” Wynne.

“I’ve enough of this! You’re not real or even the most convincing rescue. I’ll not listen anymore. Begone!” Cullen does something that Alistair can feel, but not identify. _What was that?_ “Still here!” Cullen’s voice cracks. “But that’s always worked before!” Dawning realization washes over his face as Kit scoffs.

“That’s because we’re real, dumbass. Are you?” Kit says.

Cullen stands. “Am I?”

“Yes. What do you want?” Kit asks.

“I think that’s obvious. The mages here are dangerous. They could all be blood mages, or controlled by blood mages. This Circle should be Annulled. Kill all of the mages here.”

Morrigan practically crows, but she couldn’t know how Cullen was before, or what it must have taken for him to change like this. “And this is what it gets you, Wynne!” Morrigan says. “You’ve been on their side the whole time, and here is their answer.”

Alistair speaks up, softly enough Cullen can’t hear. “His friends’ deaths are still fresh in his mind.” He nods toward the bodies in the field with Cullen. “His hatred is incredibly intense.”

“You cannot be considering this, Warden.” Wynne says. She clearly doesn’t know the Warden. Of _course_ she’s not considering this. “No one should die because they _could_ have used bloodstream nano.”

“I’m thinking what I would do if someone were to kill Leske and Rica. I would want them dead. But, that doesn’t mean I should kill their entire cell.”

“Cell, Joyela?” Zev asks.

“Carta cell. Twenty or so Dusters working together. My point is, Wynne, I’m not killing innocent pilots.”

“Warden, reconsider.”

“Tell you what, _templar_.” Kit’s tone makes Alistair flinch, though he’d never worn the armor. “I’ll stop the ones actively hurting people with nano and make a considered decision on the rest. Void, they might all be dead anyway.”

“Where are Irving and the others?” Wynne asks.

“They’re in the Harrowing Chamber with Uldred,” Cullen says, nodding toward the stairs. “Maker! The sounds coming from there.”

“We’d better hurry,” Wynne says.

“Are you ready, Joyela?” Zev says.

Kit looks around at her group. Alistair smiles at the confidence she exudes. “We’re ready.”

### Kit POV

Nano crackles in the air when they step through the Harrowing Chamber door. Kit sprints, taking two stairs every stride.

A voice booms, filling the penthouse of Kinloch Hold: “Do you accept what I offer?”

This entire floor is a dome of stained glass, which lends an eerie, mottled light to the proceedings. A tall, bald mage—Uldred, Kit assumes—is holding the chin of another pilot. The second pilot nods in that hold. There are abominations throughout the floor: one stepping away from a bank of screens, a few of which show mazes of white marble and glass, two standing guard over a huddling group of nano pilots, one standing with Uldred, ready to catch the nodding pilot if he runs.

“Uldred! Stop this!”

He glances at Kit. “Ah, the tunnel rat who resisted Sloth. Be with you momentarily.” Uldred drops the chin of the nano pilot and does something, waving his arms.

“That’s blood magic!” Wynne says. “Enchanter Sheard would never agree to this!”

Alistair fumbles next to Kit, but it’s too late to play the Litany. The pilot collapses down to one knee. Nano dust coasts his skin, swarming his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. He screams, and his voice is a Fade-scream translated to reality, two voices at once. He holds his head, his skin and robe tear, swirling shells of sea creatures emerge from his skin, each a blend of flesh and metal. He stands, lifting his arms, his dual screams bleeding into one sound. He grows taller, thicker, bulging grotesquely, but somehow only a slight variant on the other abominations in the room. Suddenly, he stops screaming, lowers his arms, and regards Kit and her crew with an eerie calm.

“Wouldn’t you rather join me?” Uldred says, smiling and waving at the new abomination as a demonstration. “Like in the Fade, your body obeys your mind without limitation.”

“Downside: Ug-ly,” Alistair quips. Kit huffs a laugh.

“Fucking killed my family to get to you,” she says, “and now want me to trade your death for power? Not going to happen.”

“Power to protect your real family,” Uldred counters. “Why not ally with the strongest against the Blight?”

“I’ve already got the strongest, sparkler.” Kit smiles her most dangerous, thrilled this opponent is undaunted by it. “Let’s show him.” She draws her weapons.

“Kill them!” Uldred shouts.

Kit cackles, but lets Alistair charge the battlefield ahead of her.

“None of your socks match, and your hats all smell funny!” Alistair shouts gleefully.

Kit moves fast and drops a new trap between one of the abominations guarding the friendly pilots and Alistair. She sets another behind the new one already scrabbling at him with long claws, hoping that he can knock the abomination into it. Before anyone realizes she’s a threat, she sends the walking explosive toward Uldred, who is standing off to one side, cackling and accumulating a thicker nano skin as his laugh gets lower.

Kit has already decided to keep track of what’s going on this battle as much as she can, but it’s easy to watch Zevran saunter casually around the edge of the room. When Kit’s first trap goes off, getting the attention of the abomination coming from the bank of screens, he draws knives behind it. He slices behind its knees, and it collapses. Zevran stabs it on the floor until the nano and flesh fall apart, forming a puddle of glittering blood.

One of the abominations near Alistair raises its arms for spellcasting.

“Casting!” Kit shouts. She ducks behind a cage and several crates when one of the abominations turns toward her.

Alistair hits an EMP, and there’s a falling shimmer in the air around him. _How much nano is in this room?_ More than they’re used to, that’s for sure. The abomination loses its spell, and all the abominations flinch but only shed a little. Alistair’s distraction costs him, as an abomination previously guarding the pilots slides to his right and slashes behind his shield. He draws his sword again, but it dips lower than his ingrained stance.

Wynne is still near the entrance, wearing stone-like armor and shooting little pellets of nano wherever it’s least likely to be noticed. She casts Stone Fist, knocking down the abomination that hit Alistair. Then she heals him. His shield rises again.

“Do you accept what I offer?” Uldred booms. Alistair triggers the Litany, and the strange song fills the room.

Morrigan is pretty close to Uldred, and casts Lightning Bolt at him. He cackles louder, electricity cracking over his new segmented shell. He floats in the air, undulating a few inches above the ground in a way that is impossible for human bones. Not that he looks human anymore: he is a huge segmented arthropod with two long arms near his mouth and eye stalks supporting human eyeballs. Kit’s bomb reaches him at that moment and explodes. He flinches. They must do more.

Kit takes advantage of the distraction the bomb provides and stabs her knife and pickaxe into the abomination guarding the former pilot. Like Zevran, she aims for the brain, but her pick and blade skitter around and ultimately do little harm.

Alistair shield-bashes the newest abomination into Kit’s trap. This one grips and explodes, and Kit was not expecting the altitude it achieves. Alistair turns his attention to the abomination Kit just stabbed, shouting wordlessly and alternating between using his shield and sword. He’d been injured when Kit wasn’t looking, and his blood spatters on the white marble.

The abomination caught in her first trap has gotten back up, and Kit places another trap to slow it down. It’s watching for those now, so it tries to skirt the trap but has to shove the kneeling nano pilots out of the way. Kit stabs the newest abomination while it’s still on the floor, getting in three good hits before she has to keep moving to avoid the other. Zevran winks at her as she heads for Uldred. This will fuck with her final count, but better to not get hit for as long as possible.

She pauses when Uldred’s mandibles sprout two long electrified whips. _Shit._

The abomination following her catches up and slashes wildly, digging through her leather armor but only grazing her skin as she rolls out of the way. _I’ve only practiced this in the Fade._ Uldred swings his electrical whips, and she’s flung hard against the windows as her vision goes white with pain. Her helmet hits first and does its job. Her off arm hits a thick metal arch support, and she screams with the pain of her bone snapping. Uldred lights on fire as Kit’s vision whites out again. Then she gets angry. She _liked_ that arm it was a _good_ arm and now this _asshole_ has gone and broken it. She pulls herself off the floor where she’d landed, shoves her hand in her pocket to stabilize her arm despite the pain, runs past the abomination _still_ coming after her, and leaps onto Uldred’s undulating back. Morrigan’s icicle spell hits him just before Kit lodges her pickaxe as hard as she can in Uldred’s skull, and he shatters.

None of that hit his chip. He bucks her off, and she can’t roll without both her arms, so she sprawls gracelessly behind Uldred. _Fuck shit everything hurts._ She does black out: Uldred is paces closer than he should be. She scrabbles with feet and working hand backwards over the slick marble floor. She hits the stained glass windows in a controlled way this time and uses them to stand.

His nano is thin and formless in patches, degraded by Morrigan’s explosions and her own attacks. Her crew is behind him, attacking their own opponents. She’s on her own. Uldred laughs again in that low, taunting chuckle, just before he brushes the trap she’d dropped as she slid across the floor. It grips a lobe of his undulating form. He looks at it curiously with those weird eye stalks, and the trap explodes.

Uldred is too big now to be thrown, but nano dust sprays, exposing some essential-looking flesh. Kit uses his distraction to run past him, slicing with her dagger. A fireball goes off away from her, singing Uldred and probably the other abomination she’d forgotten about. As she pauses to make another solid hit, Zev materializes and slides his daggers between two segments. He’s spattered in blood, hopefully not his.

Alistair shouts, “You’ve the political savvy of a salted slug!” at Uldred, getting his attention while Kit and Zev slice him up. He closes and flings a mandible at Alistair, hard, but Alistair adjusts his stance at the last second and takes the blow on his shield without falling. Uldred’s nano is sluicing off him. Kit’s pickaxe hits a chip.

### Zevran POV

Zevran kneels next to Kit, holding her injured arm still. “I expect this will hurt a bit, Joyela.”

“Do me a favor,” Kit grits through her teeth. “Kiss my ass.” Her skin is impossibly pale under her blue makeup and blocky grey face tat. She’d be fine already, healed by Wynne’s nanites, if it weren’t for Kit’s metal allergy.

“You seem to be sitting on it, and I’m truly not in the mood,” Zevran jokes, supporting the arm.  _It’s shattered,_ he realizes as it slides in a way it _really_ shouldn’t. He supports it from that direction, too.

“Straighten it,” Wynne says. “We need everything lined up properly so the nanites have less contact time.

“You, Zevran?” Kit is ignoring Wynne, distracting herself. “Not in the mood? Are you possess—ssssshit!” Kit cuts her banter short as he carefully twists the arm to a more natural-looking position, but she’s not silent. “Uldred, you nug-sucking son of a lyrium-addled dirt sniffer, by the Paragons’ collective hairy asses, that hurts!” She stops the flow of invectives and spits in the direction of Uldred’s corpse when he stops the motion. “What’s holding you back? Have I lost my charm?” She picks up her banter again with something like a smile.

“None of it, Joyela.” His eyes are tearing at pain in her gold-spoked blue eyes. Zev and Kit are motionless in a flurry of activity: Wynne preparing, Morrigan transferring nanites to Wynne’s staff, Alistair fetching anything they call for and wringing his hands… but Zevran keeps supporting Kit’s arm and distracting her. A chuckle wells up from his chest.

“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am possessed. You are ravishingly beautiful as always, nonetheless I don’t think I can kiss you right now.” He’ll allow himself this slight exaggeration. Her usually dangerous expression has contorted in an uncharacteristically unappealing way. “And you are still sitting on your ass.”

Kit chuffs a laugh. “Right. Watching Uldred toss me like a rag doll had no effect on your desires.”

“Only the desire to protect,” he says.

Kit hisses as everyone stops moving for a split second before politely continuing, pretending they didn’t hear this confession. It’s true. He could have died fighting that abomination, but the determination to protect her – get through the abomination to Uldred and keep him from _touching_ her again – gave him an extra edge. He _survived_ to protect her, something he’d never tried to do before.

“Zev, you lyrium-addled rock-licker. There are _times_ for that shit so I can hit or kiss you because there’s no  _fucking_  way I’m feeling anything but pain right fucking now.”

Wynne applies the nanites. Kit’s eyes close tight. “Shit shit shit…”

“Perhaps that is why I do it now,” he suggests. “To keep you off balance.”

“Or to remind me how loving you hurts—ah! Dirt-sniffing wool-bearded nug humper! Sorry, Wynne. Not you. Uldred.”

“It’s fine. Believe it or not, I’ve heard much worse.”

“Surfacers,” Kit grunts through her clenched teeth as the nanites do their work. “Don’t— _you_ don’t understand how nasty that shit is, do you? Noble back home would duel over the wool-bearded part alone.”

“Does it really hurt so much, amor?” Zevran’s voice catches, and he clears his throat.

“Of course it does it’s fucking broken!” Kit snaps. She sighs, eyes widening with relief. “Or not… anymore, I guess,” she pants, lifting her arm from his and flexing her fingers. “Paragons, that’s weird shit. I might never get used to magic.”

“Not… that,” Zevran says, barely daring to move. _If I’m causing her pain…_

“Oh!” Kit reviews her words and blushes, tingeing her makeup purple. “I’ve had worse pain. Recently. Much worse.” She smiles the  _dangerous_  smile and puts her newly-usable fingers on the skin at the edge of his blood-spattered body armor.

Uldred’s blood. They’ve won. She’s alive.

Zevran grins and kisses her, audience be damned.

### Zevran POV

Zevran almost misses the demons, blood pilots, and abominations.

But the victory persists. It’s real. They’ve won. Nothing raises its head to steal the victory from them. First Enchanter Irving and the other pilots follow down. They call their victory out on each floor, and pilots emerge from rooms he’d have sworn were empty. He sees a pilot emerge from a panel in the black ceiling. Another steps out of a closet door designed to merge with the wall, easy to overlook.

The best is the children, though. They come through the barrier, and Irving loudly proclaims his joy in seeing so many, and the children’s faces light up. Who told them Irving is their key to surviving the Tower? Perhaps these children are not as naïve as Zevran expected, or perhaps they are genuinely glad their First Enchanter survived.

The entire group flows out those sealed doors into Kinloch’s vestibule before Zevran can think better of it. Enchanter Irving and Kit—Warden Kit—lead the way. Perhaps he can hide in the crowd?

“Murderer!” cries the Knight-Commander from Bournshire. _What was his name?_ The pilots part, looking behind to make a clear path between the Knight-Commander’s accusing finger and Zevran. “Arrest him!”

Zevran’s instincts kick in, and he smiles his most charming smile, glancing about. “Are you referring to me?”

“Yes, I’m _referring_ to you!” the Knight-Commander—Bregan!—storms down the isle of parted pilots, setting one hand on his sword.

Zevran gets loose, ready to fight, slip out of this man’s grip and into the small crowd of pilots, anything—

Kit steps in the way, bringing Knight-Commander Bregan up short. _No, this isn’t the way this is supposed to work._

“Kit, may I introduce Knight-Commander Bregan of Bournshire,” Enchanter Irving says wryly. “Bregan, meet Warden Kit, Hero of Kinloch Hold.” He leans into the just-bestowed title ‘Hero’ subtly. The pilots around them shift to likewise be ready for anything.

Zevran wishes fervently he could see the look on Kit’s face because the other Bournshire templars nervously place their hands on the grips of their swords as she faces down their commander.

“You can bet your wide-fucked ass I didn’t do it alone,” Kit says. Zevran closes the space between them and casually rests his hands on the daggers strapped to his thighs, still loose.

“Warden,” he says softly to give her his position. He keeps his charming smile in place.

To Zevran’s surprise, Alistair steps behind them and says, “I’ve got you,” just as softly. To Kit or Zevran? At this point, it’s the same thing.

Wynne and Morrigan take positions behind them, each also saying, “Warden.” The Kinloch pilots move back, glancing nervously between the Bournshire templars and Kit’s people. Zevran wonders if they’ll help in the fight, or if they’ll simply watch the way they did against Uldred.

Kit turns her back to the Knight-Commander of Bournshire. Zevran suppresses a giggle.

“This is Warden Alistair, formerly of the templars. Zevran Arainai, _formerly_ of the Crows. Wynne of Kinloch Hold. Morrigan of the Kokari Wilds.” She turns to the Knight-Commander with a wink for Zevran, as if this had always been about introducing her crew.

“They cleared out a Tower full of rebel mages, demons, abominations, and blood mages,” Enchanter Irving says. The Knight-Commander’s jaw drops most gratifyingly.

“The five of you? Cleared that entire Tower?”

Kit laughs and the Knight-Commander shrinks into himself as she says, “We’re Grey Wardens, Ser Bregan.” She strides up to him and claps him on the elbow, turning him toward the door. “You may have heard? There’s a Blight coming up from the South. We will need help to keep everyone from getting infected.”

“A true Blight? It was only a darkspawn outbreak…”

“No, there’s an Archdemon. We cleared the Tower to secure pilot and templar allies.” Kit is steering him to the door. The glance he gives Zevran is so helpless, he almost laughs. “Drinks at the Spoiled Princess for anyone who wants the full story.”

“Hold!” Knight-Commander Greagoir calls. “I need to speak with Warden Kit and her team about urgent matters. Pilots, please return to the Tower. We must tally the survivors of the terrorist attack. My templars are on clean-up duty until further notice.” The templars groan, but the pilots look relieved as they head into the Tower. Zevran guesses drinking with the people who might have killed you a day ago doesn’t have much appeal.

“Go on!” Kit calls to Bregan. “We’ll catch you up.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Greagoir says when it’s only Kit’s crew and a few templars, “I’m upset that you tricked us into letting you into the Tower, but I am glad you survived.”

“So are we,” Kit says.

“About our bargain…”

Kit nods. “Said if gave Tower control back to you, you would help against the Blight.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to back out of that promise; our duty to watch over the mages takes precedence, even over a Blight.”

“Then will be joining them in the fight to come, _protecting_ them from the darkspawn. Excellent,” Kit says, clapping him on the upper arm.

“No,” cuts in Ser Cullen, “we must eliminate mages here.”

“What?!?” Even in his shock, echoed by nearly everyone, Zevran notices that Morrigan is unsurprised.

“No chance,” Kit says. “Need those mages.”

### Cullen POV

“They might be infected with blood nanites,” Cullen insists. His mind doesn’t help. It’s very distracting when the inside of your skull itches.

“Uldred seemed to think so,” the Warden admits, “but you could be, too, Cullen.”

He focuses on Warden Kit. He can see how she’s getting credit for their win, but also why she’d need a team. She has this _presence_ that won’t be denied. She doesn’t expect respect to be given, so she _demands_ it with her posture, tone, and body language. Yet her armor and weapons are light, designed more for skidding on pavement at high speed and taking bullets than combating mages.

“I don’t have the power to control nanobots,” Cullen says.

“The Litany of Adralla disrupted Uldred,” Kit says. “Don’t really understand it, but can you use it re-program the nanites to… don’t know. Remove themselves?”

“That could work,” Irving says thoughtfully. “I need an audio of the Litany and Adralla’s research notes, but my apprentices and I might be able to create a second device to convince the nano to leave everyone’s systems.”

“People are going to have some very sparkly poop,” Alistair says. _When did he appear?_

“Be serious for once,” Cullen snaps. “This mad plan involves trusting potential blood mages!” Cullen says, turning to Knight-Commander Greagoir, sure he’ll see reason.

“It’s worth a shot,” the Knight-Commander says. Cullen can’t believe what he is hearing. Greagoir was always stricter than Cullen liked. And now this happens, and he’s letting them go?

“What if they hide?” Cullen says. “We must eliminate all mages to be sure no blood mage escapes.”

“Listen to yourself,” Greagoir says. “That is not our charge.”

“Our charge is to protect _everyone_ from magic,” Cullen says. “This is the only way to do that.”

“You forget we also protect mages.”

“No! You don’t know what they’ve done!” _Will I have to tell them?_ He can’t tell them, so he can’t possibly convince them.  

Knight-Commander Greagoir snaps into military stance. “That’s enough, Cullen. Dismissed.” It’s an order, and years of training compel Cullen to obey. He heads into the Tower. The Knight-Commander mutters something, and his Knight-Captain follows Cullen. Whether for Cullen’s sake or the protection of the mages he just threatened, he’s not sure.

 


	17. Falling Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. Not sure how these go through the notifications, but sincere apologies to anyone who got more than one email as I posted this mess.

“Warden,” Wynne says as they wait for the boat to pick them up, “your words about ending the Blight in order to save what I care about have stayed with me.”

“And me.” Kit smirks. “But you were about to offer assistance. I admit it would increase our chances significantly. Can you get away from the Tower?”

Wynne nods. “Yes. I talked with Enchanter Irving on the way down, and he’s given me permission to travel.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay here and help rebuild?”

“That’s what Irving said. Frankly, Warden, I can’t stand the sight of the place.”

Kit blinks at her. “You’ve been avoiding the kids since the Fade,” she says. Then she barrels into motion, throwing an arm around Wynne, who barely keeps her balance. “The Fade demons weren’t your students,” she says quietly enough nobody else can hear.

Wynne shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, Warden. Abominations in the Tower were. If I stay and Cullen is right… I am not sure I could do the right thing. Much better to go with you.”

“Wynne…” Kit says.

“Warden, haven’t you said I give you an advantage? Let me be your advantage.”

Kit studies her face, then nods and releases her. “You really think you can run with outlaws like us?” Kit says a little louder. “You’re in for some rough living.”

Wynne smiles. “I can handle it, I assure you,” she says.

### Alistair POV

“Kit, I need to talk to you about Zevran,” Alistair says as they head up to the Spoiled Princess.

“Again?” Kit says, her tone as light as it ever gets. “I thought we’d worked out that he’s staying.”

“I—yes. I wanted to let you know that whatever you decide about him… even if you change your mind… I will support your choice.”

Kit’s expression softens, and for a moment Alistair wants to take it back, wants to fight to be the man she loves. But nothing’s changed: she’s made her choice, and it’s not him. It hurts, but he has to believe that he’ll find someone, too.

“Thank you, Alistair. It means a lot to me.”

He smiles. “That’s what friends do,” he says. “They support each other.”

“Thank you for being a friend. I’ll do my damnedest to be a good friend, too,” Kit promises, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Kit,” he says, clapping her shoulder in turn and turning to their friends. “Shall we?”

### Morrigan POV

Morrigan listens to Alistair’s conversation with Kit on their way up to the Spoiled Princess. _All of the pieces are falling into place._ She no longer has any doubt Kit would protect Morrigan the way she protected Zevran today. Will that change when Morrigan makes her offer, after everything they’ve seen in this Tower? An experience this intense must color Kit’s views of magic, but will it be enough to override her common sense?

### Zevran POV

After their time sharing stories with the templars, who become more and more accepting of Zevran, the others head into the Tower to ‘commandeer’ (as Kit insists on calling it) travel supplies.

“So, we’re out of the Circle.” Kit says, lagging behind with Zevran. The doors hiss shut behind Alistair.

“Yeah,” Zevran says. _Eloquent, way to woo,_ he thinks.

“Do you want a way out? Of us, I mean?” Kit says, staring over the lake.

“Us?” Zevran says, worried there’s something he missed. “We are good together, aren’t we, Joyela?”

She turns back to look him in the eye. “Yes.”

Zevran grins. “Would you be able to defeat the Blight without me? Perhaps if I left, you would be heartbroken and destitute, unable to carry on.”

Kit huffs. “Hardly.” But she seems pleased.

“No, no! It’s too great a risk. If history is to be believed, the Blight has nearly destroyed Thedas time and again. If I left you now, I might be destroying the world.”

“Zevran,” Kit says, tender and serious. “If you left, I would miss you, but I will not trap you. You’d have a safer, better life without me.”

“That’s where I disagree,” he says, matching her tone. He takes her hand in his. “My life has improved immeasurably since you started choosing my targets.”

“I’m not really sure if that’s sweet or creepy,” Kit says, but she’s smiling a true smile.

“Ah, Joyela, I’m afraid Alistair’s prudery has rubbed off on you more than you think.” He lifts her hand to his lips.

### Bodahn POV

Bodahn eyes the ground below. The road is a little narrower than he’d like, but there’s a pot glowing down there in a way he’d normally avoid because nano pots are usually only owned by mages. He crashes through some low brush as he puts down on a gravel road close to that pot.

Warden Kit, a new elf, and an elderly mage find them as Bodahn settles into a folding chair at the base of the ramp. “Hey, there, traveler!” he says.

“Bodahn!” cries Kit. “How the fuck did you find us?”

 _Is she pissed?_ Bodahn doesn’t think so. “I remembered you said you were going to the Circle next, and the news feed said the Tower had been made safe again, so I messaged Alistair. Is he around?” Bodahn glances nervously at the elf. _Looks unreliable, really._

“Bodahn!” Alistair says, fussing with his body armor as he joins them. “I didn’t think you’d come _find_ us.” The witch is following him. So they all survived.

Bodahn shrugs, still smiling. “We’re living in dangerous times. I wanted to make sure you made it out alive. I see you did! Congratulations!”

“We’re the ones who cleared that damn tower out,” Kit says.

Bodahn nods, smiling. “I hoped as much!” he says. “I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer to travel together.”

“Seriously? That would be great!” says Alistair.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” the elf cuts in. The elderly mage steps forward, too, but she looks friendlier.

“Zev, meet Bodahn Feddic, former save-ee. Bodahn, meet Zevran Arainai, a new member of our crew. Wynne of Kinloch Hold, here, gets the title of newbie, though just barely. They’re a big reason we survived that Tower. Not the only reason,” Kit says, winking at Zevran, “but a big one.”

“A pleasure,” Zevran says, staying focused on Bodahn. It’s a bit unnerving. The man’s wearing a tattered black jacket, but Bodahn suddenly feels under-dressed in his paint-stained, loose, bright patterns. “What did Kit save you from, exactly?”

“Bandits,” Bodahn says, tugging at the edge of his button-down shirt.

“What are the arrangements of this offer to travel with you?” Zevran pushes.

“I have goods, some you might need,” Bodahn is only nominally directing this at Zevran, now. “I sell them to you for a fair price and buy any loot you don’t want so you have cash. I’ll take you wherever you need to go in Ferelden that I can land. Sometimes you’ll need to go places I can’t go with this big goose,” he says, gesturing behind him to the plane, “but I’ll need to sell excess weight in towns anyway so that works out.”

“But. What do you get out of it.” Zevran’s expression hasn’t changed.

Bodahn blinks. “I was beset by bandits when Kit met me,” he says honestly. “I was having a real problem with it, but her crew took care of it. It’s an understatement to say I’ve no taste for fighting. I get a queasy stomach. But your friends? They’ll put any bandit off except the stupid and inept ones, and they won’t last long.”

“Protection, Zevran,” Kit summarizes. Leave it to former Carta. “Bodahn is trading protection for faster transport and our own little marketplace.”

Zevran nods, and the tautness leaves his muscles like a guitar being unstrung.

“Loghain is going to have trouble keeping up with us,” Alistair says, rubbing his hands together. “Especially if we can keep it secret that we’ve got a pilot on our side.” Bodahn likes the sound of that. No point making a target out of himself. However…

“Begging your pardon. I don’t go by pilot. Nothing against nano, mind you, but the term leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. I’m an operator.” Fortunately, the elderly mage is nodding. The witch is unreadable as before.

“Huh,” Alistair says, “I guess I can see that.”

“You’re Grey Wardens, aren’t you?” Bodahn says, “And you’ll end the Blight?”

“Some are,” Kit admits, shrugging. “And yes, plan to end the Blight.”

“If don’t mind my asking, why not just leave the country and wait for the Orlesian Grey Wardens to sort it out?” he says.

“Have people back home who would suffer through a Ferelden Blight, but also can’t let my down. Plus... there was this kid at the Proving I won. I’ve decided to go back to Orzammar and let that kid see I’m a Grey Warden.”

Bodahn nods. “So, Orzammar next then?”

Kit glances around their little party and says, “Yes. Yes, think Orzammar would be perfect. Tomorrow. For now, Bodahn, would you and your boy like some stew?”


End file.
